


Gravity Swell

by claptondodance (orea_domina)



Category: Actor RPF, Josh Hutcherson - Fandom, Josh Hutcherson RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-25
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2017-11-17 00:52:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 49,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/545711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orea_domina/pseuds/claptondodance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>OFFICIALLY IN REBOOT</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. [fuck that oprah shit]

**Author's Note:**

> OFFICIALLY IN REBOOT

_My heart is like the ocean, it gets in the way…_

Those particular Tori Amos lyrics had ribboned themselves through my head off and on since I’d first heard them years ago. I suppose they were a masochistic kind of mantra, to remind me of my weakness. Except I really didn’t need reminding.

They were needling themselves particularly deep that day when he got into the hotel elevator with me. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I was far too far into my own head to do more than take a perfunctory glance.

His face set off a brief flash of deja vu, but I had those all the time. I ticked off his features out of habit. Brown hair, dark green/brownish eyes, thick brows, strong jaw, sharp nose and lips. Relatively short, but still taller than me in heels, which said nothing. I barely topped five feet.

He was a person. And I’d had enough of people for the moment. I was looking forward to a week away from any living soul save room service. I had serious sleeping to do. A few days ago I had booked a room with a private balcony in the best hotel my credit card would allow. Then I’d tucked my yoga gear and other various paraphernalia away in my bag to work out the kinks in my body while I ignored anything happening in my mind. Or my heart. Not to mention what passed for my life at the moment. I was in an unemployed rut, and hitting up job fairs and living with my mother was becoming painful. I did odd accounting jobs and some temp work, but nothing that ever became permanent. I had just enough money to not be able to move out on my own. I knew it was common in this economy. And as much as I loved my mother, she was insufferable since my father passed away a few years before. Not because she moped or was depressive, but because she was enjoying being by herself, finally. And  _I_  was cramping  _her_ style.

So I was pissed as all hell when the elevator groaned to a stop and the digital display refused to go any higher than the number eight.

“FUCK!” The yell left my mouth before I could think, and I didn’t give one anyway. Strangers were strangers. He looked like an adult, and I didn’t care if I offended anyone right now. He snapped me a look, but it registered more surprised amusement than offense. Other than that he was calm as a hindu cow.

“Do you see the help button?” he asked, more to himself than to me but I answered anyway.

“No.” I did, it was bright red and right there below the floor buttons. But I was feeling uncooperative. Anger and panic were welling up in my belly, and his unflappability was pissing me off. I forced myself to breathe, and while I was attempting to wrangle some control of my fight or flight response he had located the help button.

“Hello?” he pushed and spoke at the same time into the perforations in the metal beside the red button. “Front desk, how can I help you?” a female voice crackled out of the dark little holes. “Um, yeah. We’re stuck in the elevator somewhere near the…uh, the 8th floor.” he said.

“Which elevator car are you in, sir?”

“The one…I don’t know. Is there a way to tell?”

“Yes, sir. Look on the inside of the doors, there should be a number and a letter.”

He looked. “2B.”

“Thank you, sir. Are you a guest of the hotel?”

“I am.”

“Is there anyone riding in the car with you?” He glanced at me. “Yes. One other person.”

“If you wouldn’t mind giving me your names and room numbers, I can arrange for some kind of compensation for your inconvenience,” the voice said. Possibly true, I thought. But more likely they were checking us out to see if we were indeed real guests. “I’m uh, Mr. Abernathy. Penthouse suite.” He seemed both amused and reluctant to give the information. He looked at me.

“Grace Jones, room 1245,” I said, glancing at the numbers penciled in on the cover to my room card just to make sure. He raised an eyebrow but repeated the information. There was a long pause. The voice crackled back at us.

“Okay Mr. Abernathy, Ms. Jones, we’re going to call maintenance and we’ll have you moving again as soon as possible.”

“Okay, thanks,” he said.

All the bones in my body melted and I slumped slowly to the floor, careful not to make any sudden movements that would jostle any equipment with a tenuous grip on the elevator shaft and send us to our deaths. My feet tipped over sideways in my heels. I didn’t even care that I was wearing a short dress and that he and the camera were probably getting an eyeful of my brand new lucky red lace lingerie and my day old brazillian. Another therapeutic credit splurge. So much for luck.

“Hey, are you okay?” he seemed genuine, but it wouldn’t do any good.

“Nope.” I breathed. “But don’t worry about me. You just keep doing that capable human being thing. I’m just going to sit over here and regret my decision to not take the stairs.”

He chuckled, having no idea how close to losing my shit I was. Claustrophobia was a big problem for me, and my recurring nightmares about elevators were going to need some serious professional help after this. I had been feeling foolishly brave and ridiculously empowered when I decided to push that stupid button and step into this steel cage.  _Fuck that Oprah shit to hell._  I thought.

He fumbled around in his bag for a few seconds and retrieved a bottle and a glass. “Drink?” he asked, smiling a little too widely at me, probably hoping to disarm and charm me in my obvious distress. Fucking chivalry. Or he could just be a nice person. Either way. He had very white, very straight teeth.

I sighed and shrugged, hugging my knees. I’d quit drinking a few months ago, but not for any sordid or health reasons. Just because I was an emotional drunk, and it had simply stopped being fun to end up sobbing or sullen in public. Drowning my sorrows didn’t work for me. They just sat there on the surface, and instead of dying violent liquidy deaths they seemed to enjoy the churning, popping up stronger than ever every time I tried. So I quit trying. Not to mention it was expensive unless I could get men to buy them for me, and I didn’t like doing that. Not that I  _couldn’t_. Based on past results I guess I was attractive enough, but it was A) too much work B) disingenuous since I usually had no intention of putting out and C) I liked paying my own way. I usually paid for myself, even on dates. I didn’t like thanking people. It was always awkward.

I still went out occasionally with friends, but I always volunteered to be the DD. It made things easier and I had a better time. I could keep my sober shit-together face on. Laugh at the jokes, be with the people. Do what was expected.  _Wallowing is so unattractive, sweetie._  I could hear my mother’s voice in my head. And her perennial favorite:  _Don’t be so sensitive._

I figured I might as well take him up on his offer. I wouldn’t have enough to get drunk and really lose it, just enough to relieve some of this tension. Or that’s what I told myself. “Yeah,” I said. “Please.”

“We’ll have to share the glass. I only have one. I’m on my own this weekend.”

“I don’t care,” I snapped, and his lips thinned. I was being rude. Part of me was mortified. The other part whined loudly.  _Well I don’t._  I thought. “Sorry,” I backpedaled grudgingly. “I mean, I don’t mind sharing.”

“Cool,” he said, brightening back up to what was probably his usual megawatt energy level. He needed a dimmer switch, he was hurting my eyes. “You need this more than me, I think,” he said as he broke the seal and poured me some. “Here.”

It went down quick and smooth. “That’s good shit. I don’t know shit about shit and I know this is good shit.” I said as I wiped my mouth and handed him the glass back. I snuck a look at the label. Scotch. I was used to cheap (or at the very most mid-grade) liquor; usually with an after-burn akin to jet fuel. This was more like a faintly smoldering smoke syrup. “Really good shit. Thanks.” I took another look at the bottle as the warmth spread from my throat into my belly, bringing on some much needed temporary numbness. It looked expensive.

“You’re welcome, Miss Jones.”

“Thanks again, Mr. Abernathy.”

“That’s not really my name, you know,” he said, half cocking his head at me kind of strangely, expectantly. And then it hit me. I knew who he was. My nephew fucking loved his movies. I’d even taken him to that 3D one myself when it came out.

Fucking fuck.  

Drinking in a stalled elevator with a celebrity was most definitely not how I wanted to start my week of invisible fucked-up broken person get-my-shit-together solitude.

 


	2. [s u s p e n d e d]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grace tries to cope. 'Try' being the operative word.

John. Josh. James. Hutchin-hutchersomething. There was definitely a J and a Hutch in there somewhere. Fuck. Today was getting better and better. I barely had room enough in my head for the current situation. Honestly I couldn’t care less who he was, except how it might complicate or facilitate our rescue. I hoped it was the latter, and decided to keep my realization to myself for now. There was nothing but more awkwardness in _that_ conversation.

About ten minutes into our incarceration he started pacing and texting. I’d say like a wild animal in a cage, if wild animals had opposable thumbs and iPhones, but he was still relatively laid back. He was more like a bored racehorse.

“Are you getting any kind of signal?” he asked, holding up his phone.

“I don’t know. My phone may as well be a million miles away.”

“I hate that when I forget my phone. I feel like I’m missing a limb or something.”

“I didn’t bring it with me,” I said, watching his face. _”On purpose,_ ” I whispered dramatically. It was in fact in room 1245 on the table in the charger. I wasn’t as attached to my phone as other people seemed to be, and I didn’t think I needed it that morning. I was enjoying the freedom of being disconnected.

He stopped and looked at me like I was from another planet.

“Oh,” he said. “Do you—” whatever the question was he never finished it because his phone buzzed and he held up the ‘excuse me’ finger and answered it, still giving me that look. But he forgot all about me and my weird phone habits as he talked excitedly to the person on the other end.  _I’m stuck in an elevator in this hotel, can you make these calls, get so and so on this something,_  and so on.

I had to admit I was relieved to not be the focus of his curiosity anymore. It was unnerving. I wasn’t used to it. Not only because he was fucking famous but because I was used to sliding around under everyone’s radar. I think I might have actually been blushing, too. And that was not a pleasant sensation.

I listened to him chatter for awhile, not to what he was saying but to the way his voice resonated, the way his laugh echoed through the small space. He laughed a lot. He had a very distinct voice, it was kind of high and deep at the same time. But it was pleasant enough white noise. I slipped off my shoes and rested my forehead on my knees. It was awhile before I noticed he’d stopped talking and had resumed pacing. I would have sworn he was stomping on purpose; I was convinced that he was actually trying to shake us loose.

I looked up at him, annoyed. I was already a powder keg and he was a match making a strike with every step on the sandpaper surface of my brain.

“Hey. You,” I said. “Mr. Abernathy.”

He stopped mid-stride. “Yes?”

“Sit down son, you’re makin’ me nervous.”

He frowned, probably reacting to the word ‘son,’ but really I was just running off one of the many bits of movie dialogue that rattled around in my head.

“Yeah. Seriously, sit down though. You really are making me nervous.”

“Sorry. I have a lot of energy.”

“Yes. Like a gerbil on crack. But right now, I don’t. So help me out here and sit down,” I said, the exhaustion in my voice making it sound thin and hollow even to myself. I patted the floor next to me. “Please.”

Something about the “please” made him take me seriously. Maybe it was because he was an actor that he the recognized the panic and exhaustion in my voice as I pushed the word out, but he definitely caught it.

“Hey. Are you okay?” Shit. Nice person. He was a nice person. Or he was manipulative. I was equally vulnerable to both. I was getting tired of all the alarms going off in my head. He slid down beside me and tried to put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. I tensed up instantly under his touch, his gesture having the opposite of its intended effect. And thus my discomfort with human contact made its debut. He read me quickly and pulled his hand back.

“I don’t like being touched when I’m stressed out. Nothing personal.” He seemed to accept that answer. Which was good, because it was true. “And no, I’m not okay. I’m fighting a panic attack pretty damn hard right now. I am claustrophobic. And I have a little bit of vertigo too.” I was sounding more and more pathetic by the minute. I straightened my spine a little defensively, preparing for…whatever. What the hell was I doing in an elevator then? What kind of trauma had left me with such an irritating phobia? I prepared for anything. 

Except empathy.

“Man. That sucks,” he said. Nice person words.

“It really does.” I was surprised to find that the sensation that overwhelmed me at that moment was not anger or resentment, but relief. This was workable. I swallowed all my pride and then some. “Okay. Here’s the thing. If we’re going to make it out of here without me going insane (which is not fun for either of us, by the way), I’m going to need your help.”

“Yeah, yeah. Of course. What do you need?” He was fucking precious.

“Another shot, and then be  _very still_ …and…talk to me.”

“Talk? About what?” he seemed a little suspicious now as he reached for the bottle and tumbler. I could only imagine what someone like him would have to deal with on a regular basis, out in public. I might be a secret agent for TMZ or some kind of crazy stalker. Lucky for him I was just plain garden variety crazy. And not a stalker. The opposite of a stalker, in fact.

“I don’t know,” I was reaching exasperation saturation. “Anything. Tell me…tell me what kind of music you listen to.”

“Um…I like almost everything. My taste is pretty eclectic.”

“Good word, eclectic,” I said. “But it gets overused.”

“I’ll try to remember that.”

“Anyway, sorry. Your musical taste. Go on.”

He rattled off a few dozen bands and artists, some I’d heard of, some I hadn’t. Unsurprisingly he liked mostly fast, energetic or happy music. A few serious things. But mostly stuff to dance to. Things that put him in a good mood. Got him “pumped up.”

“You’re a happy little thing, aren’t you?”

“I guess so,” he said, frowning. “Little?”

“Just a figure of speech. No height judgments from me. I’m practically a hobbit. And I wouldn’t presume to know anything about your penis size.” Oh boy, my first drinking joke. I made those for awhile before I got weepy. And they were usually inappropriate. I held up my hands. ”Not gonna touch that one. So to speak.”

He laughed, seeming surprised at my ability to even make a joke. “You wouldn’t be the first if you did. Occupational hazard.”

“What is it that you do?” I asked, tipping my head and feigning ignorance (but not so well). I was pretty sure he knew I knew. My face was an open book, and recognition was an easy read. I expected him to ‘fess up.

But he didn’t.

“Exotic dancer,” he said with a perfectly straight face.

“Really.”

“Yep. Really.” He popped up onto his knees and struck a pose, complete with a pout, lewd hand gestures and a ridiculous wink. He definitely belonged in some branch of the entertainment business. I laughed. Hard. Despite myself and everything else. That scotch was quick. I tried to remember when I last ate, and it had been awhile. I had a late breakfast but it must be close to early evening by now. Then I tried to remember the last time I’d laughed.

I pretended to look him over while I took the opportunity to really look him over. He was compact and solid, his muscled arms and shoulders visible in his tank top. He was wearing jeans, but I could see that his legs were also muscular. I had a sudden desire to get a better look at his ass (strictly to judge its tip making potential, of course), but I was not going to ask. “So what’s your stripper name, Mr. Abernathy?” I asked finally. He grinned, gratified by his success at amusing me.

A sharp thump from above the car jarred us back to reality. Several responses flashed through me so quickly I had no way to stop them. Hyperventilation was imminent if I couldn’t get a grip. My body interpreted that thought literally. I grabbed his arm in a sudden urge to huddle and then yanked it back.

“You’re fine,” he said distractedly as he stood up.

I searched around in my bag for my emergency xanax and chocolate bar. I wasn’t supposed to take the xanax with alcohol but fuck it. This was a bona fide emergency.

“I’m going find out what’s going on,” he said, standing up, brushing his hands on the back of his jeans. His ass was lovely, by the way. Firm, round, muscular. Like the rest of him.

The news from the front desk was vague at best. Maintenance was working on the problem. The voice was careful not to make any promises and peppered every other sentence with an apology that avoided any admissions of liability. Soon, she said. Very soon. We’d been stuck for about thirty minutes so far, but it might as well have been thirty days. Suddenly I was finding it difficult to breathe. Don’t think about it, I scolded myself as I thought anyway about the empty space below me, the weight of the metal, the comparable fragility of our bodies. The steel walls loomed and shrank and I closed my eyes. The headline would be hilariously fitting. Celebrity dies in freak elevator accident! Oh yeah, and some woman.

_My heart is like the ocean…_

My head sang to me.

_It gets in the way._  
 _So close to touching freedom,_  
 _and then I hear the guards call my name…_

 

I lay down on the floor and gravity did its job and held me there. I threw an arm over my eyes and waited for the xanax to kick in. I figured if we came free I would have the best chance starting as far away from the ceiling as possible. I was probably dead wrong, but I felt better.

“…nothing we can do right now,” a voice outside my head was saying. “Hey. Miss Jones. Grace. Hello in there. You okay?”

“You need to stop asking me that,” I said. “The answer isn’t going to change until we get the fuck out of here.” I kept my eyes closed, but I heard him sit down across from me;  felt his legs stretch out towards mine.

I needed a distraction. And another shot.

All conversations eventually headed one of three ways: God, politics or sex. I wasn’t up for a religious discussion, and politics always drained me or pissed me off. Might as well skip the small talk. ”Lets talk about sex,” I said. “That’s always fun.”  I snuck a look out of one eye. He was clearly amused.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lyrics credit: Tori Amos, Take to the Sky - B side from the Winter single


	3. [talk about it]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A conversation about that thing grownups do when they're drunk.

“You start. Since you suggested it,” he said. I motioned for the scotch. I sat up and accepted the bottle.

“Let me think. And don’t get excited, I’m not talking about an in-person skype session or anything.” I paused. “Here’s something I’ve always had trouble understanding. What is up with guys and dick pics?”

He laughed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, so, guys used to get off exposing themselves on the subway or at the park, right? And those people are generally considered to be perverts, and it’s still illegal to expose yourself in public. But thanks to the digital age you can send in a faceless dong shot to Rate My Meat and get random strangers to assign your member a star value from one to five. Potentially thousands of people will see your peen. People sext each other. Men send ‘tributes’ to women they’ve masturbated about. 

And there are scandals like Anthony Wiener, who accidentally posted his wiener to twitter instead of messaging it to the woman who was not his wife? Yeah. I actually saw him at the airport in DC right after that happened. Headed home to NY and his pregnant wife. He didn’t look happy. So why?”

“I don’t know. There are some people who do it on purpose. Exhibitionists, people trying to get publicity. They’re not ashamed of it. Or if they are it’s wiped out by ambition or whatever else is motivating them. Not that nudity necessarily deserves to be shamed, but…I’ve had…friends who have had private pictures get out. The backlash is horrible, if you care.”

I ignored the fact that he had just basically admitted he at least knew famous people who had nude photo leaks. “Yeah, but why? Why do the ones who do care ignore the consequences? I guess I don’t get it.”

“Why do baboons show each other their asses? Chances are at least one or more of the other baboons will want to have sex with them. The higher the number, the higher the number of potential encounters.”

I shrugged. “Seems pretty primitive.”

“Sometimes primitive is exciting. Why do some women like having their hair pulled? Or rough sex?”

“I have no idea. _I_ don’t.” I had the sudden unfocused image of concrete from far too close up, the feeling of tiny street particulates and fragments of broken glass being ground into my cheek. I touched my face, reassuring myself that it was smooth now, there were no visible marks.

Back on topic, dude. I scolded myself. “There are way more pictures of penises taken by men of themselves than by women of men. Or women of themselves. And gay men, they take it all to another level altogether. Sometimes I think I just want a guy who will look at me the same way he looks at his dick.”

He chuckled. “Men are visual.”

“And your genitalia are external. I get it. But I’m a visual person, and I don’t take pictures of my boobs all the time or stare at them adoringly in bed every night.” My tongue was feeling loose. I was starting to slur my words a little, and the warmth in my belly was becoming fire in my cheeks. I always got red when I drank. Another reason I stopped. Unattractive drinkers are unattractive.

“Why not?” He grinned and laughed, and it was contagious. Suddenly I found the entire conversation, the entire situation hilarious. Our laughter escalated quickly, in that way that alcohol induced laughter does. I tried to count the number of shots I’d had and lost track at four. The joke didn’t even matter, we couldn’t stop laughing. _I’m laughing like I used to laugh,_ I thought. And of course with that thought all the lightness I felt evaporated. I stuttered to a stop. But I kept the smile. I liked how it felt right then. Not forced. Not uncomfortable. And my cheeks hurt, in that good way.

“You’re funny,” I said.

“Awww, thank you!” He feigned surprise and humility. “And you look nice when you smile.”

This amused me for all the wrong cynical, suspicious reasons. What was happening? “Nice like I’m a nice person, or nice like I’m attractive?”

“Both,” he smiled, all innocence.

Damn him. We had been getting along so well. His words had inadvertently triggered a land mine. I fumbled with my hands. “Yeah, right,” I said bitterly.

“Shit, don’t be like that. I was just giving you a compliment. I hate it when girls are like that.” He sounded so real. Like a real person feeling real feelings saying real things to another real person. He was going to make me say it.

“Thank you.” I groaned, and it sounded forced and insincere because it was. I swallowed hard. “I’m not even a girl. And I still have trouble accepting compliments,” I confessed. I raised a point-making finger, getting distracted momentarily trying to focus on my upraised digit. “But to be fair I also have trouble accepting criticism. So. To recap. Feedback in general, me,” I pointed at myself, “not good.”

We laughed like I had not just admitted something painfully honest about myself.

“So there’s just no winning with you,” he said.

“Nope. No winning, ever. Here, give me another drink and another compliment and I’ll try to do better.” He handed over the bottle. We’d stopped using the glass awhile back. I took a swig and shook myself out, preparing. He laughed. His laugh was like a little kid’s sometimes. It made something in my heart pop, like a tiny pixie stick straw bursting open, spilling sugar everywhere. “Okay,” I said. “Hit me.”

“Okay, you have to promise to dismiss the first negative thing that comes into your head and just say thank you.”

“Okay, got it. Go.”

“You have beautiful eyes.”

Good god, he sounded so sincere. Was that a negative thought? Yes. Assumption being that he wasn’t. He was an actor. I forced it out as if I believed it. “Thank you,” I said.

“Good! That was good. What was your first thought?”

“That you were bullshitting me.”

“Well, I wasn’t. You do. Just stating facts.” His face was so soft and open and relaxed, even a little bit shy. What if I let myself believe it? It was not a declaration of love or affection, it didn’t mean he even wanted me. Everyone had eyes. I let myself believe I was a photograph, an object with no meaning attached. I let myself take this one thing and keep it.

“Thank you.” I meant it.

“You’re welcome,” he said, warm and slow. He was apparently feeling the alcohol too. We sat there in nearly comfortable silence for a little while.

I eyed him. “I know who you are, by the way,” I said. “Just wanted to get that out there.”

“So you made me, huh? I thought maybe you did.”

“Yeah, I didn’t want to put you on the spot. Until now, obviously.”

He laughed. “Thank you.”

I had been right. We had gone from nearly comfortable to awkward in less than ten seconds. But at this point it had to be said.

“Except I can’t remember your name exactly. Jaawwww..” I started, knowing that was at least probably right.

“Josh,” he nodded.

“Hutchersomething. Hutcherperson. Hutcherguy. Hutcherdude. Hutcher-stuckinanelevatorwithme.”

He laughed at my Hutcherjokes. “Hutcherson,” he said. He bobbed his head a little when he said it. He was proud of his name. It was a tiny bit adorable. 

“Soooo…Josh Hutcherson. Have you ever taken a dick pic?” I asked.

“Hahahaha. I’m practically married to my phone. What do you think?”

“Do you have one on your phone right now?”

“Uh, nooo…” he squirmed and covered his phone in his pocket protectively.

“Okay, okay. Sorry. None of my business! I did just use you for free therapy just now though,” I laughed.

“That’s true, I guess it was fair to ask me something personal. Who doesn’t take pictures of their junk? People are curious. Curious about how things look from different angles, how something might look to someone else… but anyway. Ask me something else.”

“Here’s one. How old are you?”

“That’s not even about sex!”

“Disappointed?”

“No, just surprised. I’m twenty.”

“So give me that bottle, son. You don’t get custody anymore.”

“Hey!” he frowned and hugged the bottle possessively, “It’s mine! I bought it with my very own money and my very own fake ID. Besides, the liquor laws in this country are a joke. I could get drafted and die for my country but not get drunk. And don’t get me started on legalizing marijuana…”

“Oh, I agree. It’s all ridiculous. As long as you’re aware of the consequences, who am I to stop you? Except a person who could get in trouble for facilitating underage drinking.”

“I don’t know. Who are you?” he eyed me. “Is your name really Grace Jones?”

“Yep.”

“That’s awesome.”

“Yeah, my dad insisted. Huge fan. If I had been a boy my mom was going to get to name me John Wayne Jones. I don’t know, sounds kind of serial killer to me.”

“So how old are you?” he asked.

“I’m twenty-nine. Which feels really fucking old right now.”

“That’s not that old.”

”’ _That_ old.’” I mimicked, shaking my head. “Spoken like a true youngin’,” I teased. “You get back to me when you’re in your forties and fifties chasing all the hot new young talent around, then we’ll talk, Jack Nicholson.”

“Well I had hoped to be somewhat more settled down by then. That’s why I’m not looking for a girlfriend right now. Living it up while I’m young. So to speak.”

“That is the way to do it, if you can. Except you’re a guy, you can get away with it as long as you want. Do you work a lot? I bet that makes things hard on relationships.”

“You have no idea,” he said, his face falling. “Age, distance, ego, ambition. All the games. I’m so tired of all that shit. Plus it’s better for my career right now if I’m single and perceived as available by the hormonal masses. I just want to have a good time and work and establish my career so I can do what I want later.”

“Which is what?”

“Oh, I love acting, but I also want to direct and produce and write and maybe even have the freedom to settle down if I want to. I want a family. Kids.”

“You’re lucky.”

His face suddenly lost some of its boyishness. “I have been working my ass off since I was nine.” He lightened back up a little and amended “…and I am very lucky. I have an awesome family who have supported me no matter what. I have good friends. And I ended up in this elevator with you, right?”

I laughed too hard, one of those situationally inappropriate nervous laughs.”Yeah. Now you’re either just shamelessly flirting or you’re making a horrible joke.”

He did that thing again with his mouth. The thing with the shiny teeth. Smiling. He was pretty good at it.

“So you never told me what you’re doing here in town,” I said. “And don’t you actor types usually have an entourage or manager or someone to brush your teeth and hold your umbrellas for you?”

“Haha, funny. I’m here for a morning show appearance. And I would normally have someone with me but my ‘entourage’ were all otherwise occupied this week. Not a single person could come with me.  Not even one of my parents.”

“You travel with your parents?” I was incredulous. I’d hightailed it out of my parents house at sixteen and hadn’t looked back since except the requisite holidays, funerals and weddings. _And the odd long term boughts of unemployment,_ I reminded myself.

“Yeah, my parents are awesome. I usually have some kind of security but they aren’t showing up until my appearance. I was going to hit up some people I know here for dinner or something later but nothing spectacular.”

“You don’t like being alone.”

“Naw, I get restless and bored. Sometimes I wouldn’t mind being left alone by certain groups of people but it comes with the job. I don’t spend that much time alone when I’m not sleeping. I like to do stuff. Be out in the world.”

“Not me. I like to be by myself. I don’t mind doing things but I need down time. I need time away. Which is what I had had planned for this week. No people, no distractions, just me and a big soft bed, lots of wine, sitting on the balcony watching the city go on without me.”

“Wow, that’s not depressing.”

“It’s not, actually. Sometimes watching something from far away is the best way to get back into it. To remember it’s not all about me. Get perspective.” I shrugged.

“That sounds almost religious.”

“I guess. It’s the closest I’ll ever get to religion.”

He was quiet for awhile. We’d come to one of those awkward silences that I didn’t really hate as much as I should, normally. But right now it wasn’t good. He looked to be somewhere on some train of thought. He wasn’t even fidgeting. Much. Just picking at his hands.

“Hey. No being quiet.” I nudged his foot with mine. He looked up, his face too serious. I could fix that, maybe. I kicked his foot again. “Hey. Ass, legs or tits? Most men have a preference.” I was rewarded with a small grin.

“Ass. Definitely,” he didn’t even hesitate. “You? Does size really matter?”

“Haha. To some women. The same kind that care about what kind of car you drive or how big your bank account is. Status symbol shit.” I thought about it. “Every person I’ve been with it’s something different that I was attracted to. And I’ve never rejected anyone because of their size. Although for some crazy reason I seem to like men with larger than average heads. On their necks. But lately I don’t even care about looks.”

“I know what you mean. I used to have a definite ‘type’ but now I just want someone real.”

I nodded. He was disturbingly easy to talk to. Between the alcohol, the situation, my mental state and his unexpected openness I was having so much trouble keeping up my usual defenses. I was just too tired. Bitchy was still on stand-by, as always. But unless I was talking to a French waiter, people usually responded to bitchy with distance. I wasn’t feeling like alienating him anymore. My terror was at bay, but I needed to not think about it. I took a deep breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

“You o…” he started to say “okay” but I flipped him a glare. “I mean, want some more?” He held out the bottle.

“Yes please.” I took it, threw some back and shivered at the burn. “Okay. Tell me something good. Juicy. Doesn’t have to be personal. Doesn’t even have to be true. Tell me about how you get the good tips, Mr. Dancer.”

“Well, it’s like any other job, you have to perform.”

“So…pole? Lap dances? The full monty?”

“Oh, I do it all, baby. But the full monty costs extra. That’s just for very select clientele.”

I laughed. “I’m sure.”

Suddenly he was looking at me like he was looking at me for the first time. It was unnerving.

“What?” I said, what was left of my defenses snapping up.

“Nothing. I was just wondering about you.”

“Wondering what?”

“Just…general things.”

“General things such as…”

“Like, are you seeing anyone? Married? I don’t see a ring.”

I covered my left hand reflexively. “No. Not for a long time.”

“Why not? I’m sure you get a lot of offers.”

“Not really. I don’t get out much. And I’m…I have complicated…needs.”

“Like, in the bedroom?”

“Yeah, like in the bedroom.” This was getting out of control. I could feel the pull of my need in the pit of my belly; where the black hole lived that was never satisfied. I needed to shut this down. But there went my mouth again, with the words. “I don’t usually talk to people about it.”

“That’s cool. I understand needing your privacy. You don’t have to tell me anything. But now I am curious. And we _are_ supposed to be talking about sex. I swear I won’t tell anyone.” He actually crossed his fingers over his heart. He smiled, attempting to charm me. And succeeding.

I was exhausted, overwhelmed, inebriated, tired of not being able to talk about it. So I just threw it out there. “I’m easy to turn on, but it’s very difficult to make me come.” I avoided using the word hard, because I’d heard that joke before. “It’s technically called anorgasmia, which sounds fun, like maybe it’s an orgasm theme park, but it’s not. It’s a sad, sad state of frustration that I live in.”

He raised one eyebrow. And there it was. I was not just a person, I was now a challenge. A mountain to be climbed, just to prove it could be done. His face said he thought he could do it. The confidence that one ride on his disco stick could send me into oblivion. Surely he would be the one. They all thought the were.

“Uh uh. Trust me,” I shook my head. “Whatever you’re thinking, whatever you’re packing down there…” my eyes traveled deliberately to the bulge that was starting to strain against the fabric of his jeans. “…is not gonna do it right out of the gate.”

Now he was predictably defensive. “Hey, I’ve been with girls who didn’t think they could come at all before,” he huffed. “I may be young but I know what I’m doing. And I have the experience.” He held up his index and middle fingers and curled them at me.

“Oh I believe you, dude. I have no doubt many, many girls have screamed your name even when you’re not there. But I’m not a girl. And I know what I need and what it takes to get me off. It’s not something I do with other people very often because it takes such a long time.”

“How long?”

“Up to a week.” The look on his face was priceless. “But it can be shorter or longer depending on how wound up I am.” I looked down at my hands. “You don’t even want to know how wound up I am right now.” Ugh. Why did I say that? I might as well just ask him at this point. 

“You mean besides the claustrophobia and the vertigo? How wound up are you?”

“Really tight.” I said, and smacked the back of my head on the steel wall at my word choice as his pants held him back again. It seemed that I wanted him pretty badly. At least part of me was going for it, and it was at least partially mutual. Knock. It. Off. This was not in the plan. Be a tiger, I told myself. A tiger who was okay pacing the jungle alone. Walk away. It was stupid self help talk, but it had worked for me occasionally. Starting a new job always took a lot of tiger.

“So what takes so long?” He was so casual. I was far too at ease. But it had been so long since I’d talked to anyone about it. There was some comfort in talking to a stranger, even a famous one. I never had to see him again. At least in person. And for some reason I believed him when he said he wouldn’t tell anyone. Who was he going to tell that would matter to me? I was so tired.

“I don’t know. It’s all mental. Something in my head just won’t let me let go. So I have to make sure I’m completely ready. That there’s enough pressure built up to push me over the edge. That I’m relaxed enough. That I trust the person I’m with. I have specific scenarios I’ve worked out. Some are tantric, some I’ve stumbled across on the internet.”

“Like what?”

“Basically it’s just a lot of buildup. At first they involve not touching each other, no orgasms. Then some touching, then it’s down to business. For however long it takes. And I make the rules.” I shrugged in a way I hoped was dismissive. “Usually I don’t meet people who are patient and secure enough.”

I hadn’t told anyone, let alone a stranger, the details of my sexual needs since the last time I’d had to lay it out for a prospective partner. Which hadn’t ended well. The memory made me feel vulnerable all over again. Which brought me right back to our current circumstances. I had a sudden rush of vertigo. Spinning. Me, my life, everything I’d held such an iron grip on over the last ten years was spinning completely out of control. I pulled my legs to my chest and put my head in my hands.

“Stand up,” he said.

“What?”

“Stand up,” he repeated, holding out his hand and motioning for me to get up. “Dance with me.”

 


	4. [you never can tell]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rated D for Dancing!

“I can’t.”

“Yes you can. Come on.”

“There isn’t even any elevator music,” I whined, but I let him take my hand and pull me up anyway. 

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and a portable speaker from his bag. He scrolled through his music and picked something, then hit the screen. 

I laughed. “Beyonce?”

“What? Beyonce’s my girl.”

And then…then he broke into the Single Ladies dance. It was a thing that happened that I probably would never forget. The bored racehorse was unbridled. He was completely unselfconscious, even though he was aware that he had an audience. A captive audience, but still. I was watching him. I couldn’t not watch him. I wondered what he would have been doing if he had been alone in the elevator, if I had actually taken the stairs. It was entirely possible that he would still be doing this.

“Come on!” he said. “Dance with me.” 

“Okay but no bouncing,” I warned, indicating the elevator car in general. Luckily his moves were happening mostly in his shoulders and extremities, and his feet weren’t leaving the ground a lot. ”Because that will freak me the fuck. out.“ 

“Okay,” he nodded. “Safety dances only.”

I did the best I could to keep up (and to keep the nervous laughter at a minimum), but I had no clue about the choreography. I’d only seen the video a handful of times, plus parodies. He was obviously more up on things that happened in those places where people actually danced. I had no idea if he knew the choreography either or if he was just winging it. It didn’t matter, there was just no topping the show I was getting. It was dorky and unreserved and confident and the combination was unexpectedly sexy. And then it was over. He clapped for me. “That was fun, right?” he asked me. 

“Aye aye, Dance Commander,” I replied, saluting. 

He leaned over and picked up the phone. “What’s next? Any requests?”

“Do you have any Chuck Berry?” I asked. A good twist wouldn’t rock the boat too hard, or sap too much of my energy. His face lit up. Maybe he was thinking what I was thinking. 

“Jackrabbit Slim’s Twist Contest? I _love_ that movie.” He was. 

“You have the song?” 

“In fact…” he scrolled, then looked up and smiled “…I do.” 

He kicked off his Vans, tapped the screen, and it was a teenage wedding and the old folks wished them well. 

His John Travolta was spot. fucking. on. I was impressed. And there wasn’t much room for it after his Beyonce. It was rare that I let go and felt so free to just do what I felt, not caring what other people thought of what I looked like or even what they thought at all. But I did my best Uma, and I don’t know how (the scotch helped), but I didn’t bother to think about it. He was rubbing off on me.

Then because it was what I would have done if I were drinking before the current version of me got ahold of me, I started singing along. Not particularly well. My voice had no power, the range of a grade school recorder and the tone of an unhappy cat. And I did not give one single fuck. It was awesome. The Hutcherperson was amused. And maybe wishing he had some ear plugs. But mostly amused and probably surprised, considering that my singing was not something most people should or did hear. But he cheered me on, with enthusiasm. So it was his own hearing loss. 

When the song ended I finally felt the self-consciousness settle into the pit of my stomach again. Maybe not all of it came back, though. I ducked away from our impromptu dance floor and pretended to look for something in my bag to hide my red face. Mint? Okay. Chocolate? Maybe not yet. Embarrassment was only one of the emotions running rampant through my chest. What the fucking  _hell_ was I doing? I reached out for the guard rail. 

“Tired already?” he teased. “How about…” he scrolled through his phone “…this?” It was a slow song that I’d never heard before. My stomach suddenly joined a gymnastics team. I froze. 

He put the phone down and held out his hand. “Are you okay with a little touching now?” he asked. He had on his best seductive face. Or at least what I assumed was his best. I couldn’t take it seriously but I did take his hand. He pulled one of my arms up around his neck and then the other, looping them over his shoulders middle school dance style, his hands around my waist. He was a few inches taller than me, enough that I had to look up at him but not enough that it hurt my neck. And my arms didn’t strain to reach around his neck. I hated it when I felt like I had to get stilts to hug someone.

Feeling that tired woozy drinky feeling, I let my forehead drop against his shoulder and closed my eyes, hoping the world didn’t spin. I tried to wipe my mind clean and just live in the moment. Get all zen and shit. Tried to forget where I was, and what was or wasn’t beneath my feet. I focused in on the who and the what and the now. I didn’t worry about the why for the moment. I only knew I needed this, whatever it was. Distraction. 

I was a little surprised by the sureness of his hands when they went to the small of my back, the way he knew exactly where to place his fingers as we moved. There was a distinct lack of middle school sweaty palmed nerves. Then I remembered that this was not an ordinary person. He’d been charming the masses since pre-pubescence. What was one freaked out woman in an elevator?  

“You have…some skill.” I laughed. And it was true. Then in a sudden flash all my zen fled and panic rushed up in its place. _Too much skill,_  my brain screamed at me. I was not a tiger anymore, I was a startled deer. I looked up. The world shrank, and I panicked. “I…” Confused, I stammered and flushed red and pulled back, aware that this new plateau in our forced companionship could only end one of two ways. Either I ended it or he did. I would rather be the one to do it.

Deep breath. 

 _Calm down,_ I told myself. The circumstances would end it. Whatever happened, we would get out (eventually), and then I never had to talk to him again. This was okay, this was helping. It’s not like we had a pack of cards. Actually I didn’t know that he didn’t. But he hadn’t offered those. He had offered this. 

Unaware of what was going on in my head he looked concerned but he wasn’t letting me allow my panic overwhelm me. His arms were strong and consistent. He was intuitively supportive. He didn’t spook easily, I guess. There was really nowhere to go, anyway. I relaxed and let my head drop back onto his shoulder. I was buzzed and confused. 

“Is this too much contact?” he whispered. I shook my head ‘no.’ “I can…” he started to let go. I realized just how much I didn’t want him to and it left a crack in me. My life was short on hugs, and this felt like a long, sweet hug that made up for a lot. 

“No, no. It’s good. It really is helping. It’s just been awhile since I…since I danced with anyone.” That was true, technically. He pulled my arms down from around his neck and repositioned them around the taper of his waist. Then he wrapped his arms around my shoulders, pulling me closer, holding me like the startled animal I didn’t want to be. Any other moment in my life, I would have pushed away as hard as I could from something so patronizing. So…I was fucking ten years older than him, and he was petting me in an elevator to keep me from losing my mind. Whatever the word for that was. My mind said I should recoil with everything it had. But almost every other part of me didn’t want him to stop, because whatever he was doing, it was working. “You’re fine,” he said into the top of my head. “What is it, do you have somewhere to be? Hot date?” 

“Yes, actually,” I sighed. “In my bed,” (I could feel his smirk), “asleep. Not dreaming.” 

“Not dreaming huh?” 

“That was the idea,” I groaned. “Yoga, shower, wine, pass out, repeat. Eat when absolutely necessary.” 

“That sounds kind of like my life when I’m not working. If you replace the yoga with basketball or something. And add some people. I’d ask what’s going on but it’s really none of my business.” 

“Ugh,” I said. “What isn’t going on? I’m unemployed, have a seemingly useless degree, I live with my mother, I miss my dad, I have a car on the verge of death… And those are just the current issues. It messes with my brilliantly sunny disposition, you know?” I was going for sarcasm there at the end, but it ended up sounding more like exposing an angry nerve. I hadn’t intended to say all of it, and when I did it sounded like both a lot and not enough. At least I had stopped myself before I got to the really raw stuff. I gulped back the stupid feelings pushing at the base of my throat. I was not going to fucking _cry_. That was just not an option. 

“It sounds…” he slid his hands under my arms and around my waist again and my hands returned to his shoulders “…like you need more distraction.” One of his hands left my waist and ventured south. He nuzzled his face into my hair. “If you need a bigger one, I can help,” his voice was rough and low in my ear as he squeezed my ass firmly, bringing our torsos together, pressing the ‘bigger’ part of his distraction against my hip.

Okay. Interesting development. The sweet hugging was gone and this was not a boy, this was a man. And he knew exactly what he was doing. A flame in me burst up like someone had thrown kerosene on a pilot light. It was waterproof, it would still burn in a downpour, it would burn under water. It would be hard to put out.  

“Oh really? Can you now?” I managed to get out, trying my very best to disbelieve him. He just nodded like a cocky bastard.

“You’re a cocky bastard, aren’t you?” I sighed. And then I had no more words because his lips were on my cheek and he was kissing his way toward my neck and the roar of agreement the blood in my veins made was deafening.  

“I’m going to give you a compliment,” he said between the kisses I was having trouble accepting as reality. “Don’t freak out.”

I nodded.  

“I like your underwear.”

SHIT. I’d completely forgotten about my careless and revealing slump from earlier. 

“Um… thank you. They were supposed to be lucky.”

“You’re welcome. And I think that luck worked for me instead of you. Sorry.”

Even if I had wanted to speak, I couldn’t have. My throat was closed for business. He didn’t seem to mind, he went back to where he left off, on that very same throat, to that spot right behind my left earlobe. Air escaped my lungs in a way that could be described as a sigh of things that I didn’t want to admit I was feeling. Like good. I could feel the softness of his mouth on my skin, every nerve he triggered knowing exactly where to send its signal. Tiny electrical and chemical cascades surfed the pathways of my nervous system straight to the contracting points of my nipples, right down through my belly, to the pilot light of tightly packed nerves. The flame bloomed again, hotter. Wetter. I sucked in a breath when I realized I’d forgotten to take one. I could feel the low vibration of his laugh through his smile against my neck. I was virtually putty in his hands. No one had made me feel like this since…well, it had been a very long time. 

But I didn’t want to be putty. _I’m not putty._ My mind asserted defiantly. But tigers don’t run away. They fight. I shook off all the doubts, dug as deep as I could and matched his strength and confidence with what I could find of my own. My fingers snaked around the back of his neck and found the soft curls at the nape and dug in. I pulled my head back and searched his eyes. They were the same as before. Just eyes. A very interesting color, though. I hadn’t really noticed that. Up close they were made up of what seemed like a million different little flecks, all a slightly different color. They were grouped together in bands and patches of amber, gold, green and brown; all shifting and shiny in the fluorescent light. There was no fear in them, but no aggression either. Just a little surprise, a little amusement, some kindness, a rock solid sense of self and a small storm cloud of twenty-year-old-with-a-hard-dick want. It was good enough for me. I closed my eyes and reached out with my lips for his. He met them. The smallest shiver ran through me like a ripple on water. It lasted only a few seconds and was as chaste as a Sunday morning, but it was more than enough. I pulled back, and he let me. 

He was looking at me now. _At_ me. Into me. Our gazes locked, two creatures that didn’t belong in the same social habitat suddenly in a cage together with nothing to do but each other. Well, or play cards. But this was much more fun. 

The speaker crackled as someone coughed into a phone somewhere in the building. “Mr. Abernathy? Ms. Jones?” I withdrew my hand and our standoff broke apart, remembering suddenly that we were probably on camera. He probably never forgot, even though the camera would have caught some things for sure. No avoiding that ass grab.  

“Yes?” he spoke into the circle of tiny circles. 

The voice cleared its throat again. “I just wanted to let you know that the crew says they’ve figured out what went wrong, and they’re fixing it now. You may feel some movement, but don’t be alarmed. It should just be a few minutes.”

“Okay, thanks.” 

The interruption had taken all the fight out of me, but not the arousal. Everything between my legs was awake and aching for attention. _It should just be a few minutes._ Maybe it would just…go away. 

 

 


	5. [r e l e a s e]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grace fills Josh in on some rather personal details.

It was official. I was very drunk. And rambling. About me. About sex. About anything. I didn’t care anymore.

I was filling up the silence left in the wake of our dance with whatever came into my head. We were back to lying on the floor. I was on my back, he was on his side, head propped up in his hand on the triangle of his elbow, facing me. It had been almost an hour and forty five minutes since we’d been stranded.

I’d started off with my ten minute life story. Always amusing. Then I’d asked him about his job, then about his family, and then about his life. I may or may not have asked him about a few celebrities who will forever remain nameless. Then, having run out of everything I could think of we’d moved back to the terrible dirty details of what I referred to as my sex life. 

“So what’s the longest you’ve ever gone without, you know, having an orgasm?” he asked.

“Years,” I said without hesitation. The look on his face wavered between disbelief and sympathy. “You’re young. You probably rub one out a few times a day, or at least once a day, right? Yeah. It doesn’t work like that for me anymore.” 

“Does this happen to a lot of women?”

“Sometimes. But not everyone is as aware of their shortcomings as I am. And not everyone has the specific gift of the circumstances I’ve had that make me aware.”

“That’s vague.”

“Yeah. It is,” I laughed. “What? You want to be my therapist now? I already have a paid friend.” 

“Paid friend?” 

“Therapist. Someone who has to listen to you, at least for fifty minutes of an hour. Because you’re paying them to.”

“Wow. That’s…”

“Bitter. Cynical. Lonely. Yes. Welcome to my life, Mr. Hutcherson. I have my reasons for keeping away from people.” 

“But you don’t want to.”

“No. I don’t want to,” I choked out to the ceiling. My heart felt like it had dropped out of my chest, dangling on an imaginary filament somewhere underneath us in the dark of the empty elevator shaft. This was the crown jewel in the set of drunken admissions I’d made about myself in the past two hours. 

He reached out his hand and tucked his pinky finger under and around mine. My heart bounced back up into my chest, slamming straight into my windpipe. For some reason this tiny, tiny gesture was more than anything else we had done, or that he could have done. I was glad I was already on the floor. We lay there for awhile while I thought about nothing and savored the few square inches of contact, and he let me. 

I stared up at the elevator doors. “To be,” I said, suddenly amused. “Or not to be.” 

“That is the question?” He was confused. 

“2B. Or not 2B. The elevator car number,” I laughed. 

He looked. “Ha! That is funny.” He smiled to himself. “Be yourself.”

It was my turn to be confused. 

“It’s just something I say a lot. And get shit from my friends about sometimes.”

“Who else would I be?” 

“Exactly. People don’t understand that though. They want to be who other people tell them they should be, or what society tells them they should or shouldn’t be, or they spend so much time searching for an identity. Meanwhile they’re having one by just existing.”

“Makes sense. But what if who you are is an asshole?”

He laughed. “Then you should try to be a nice asshole? If we’re not good to each other life just gets wasted.”

“I’m an expert at wasting my life.” Ugh. _Thank you, Debbie Downer_.  

“So why do you do it? Cut yourself off from everyone when you don’t want to?”

Unexpectedly, it took me a second to find my voice. “It’s easier. It’s less messy, less painful to carefully arrange my interactions with people. I get to feel like I have a tiny bit of control over my life.” 

“You do have control. Everyone does.”

“To a certain extent. But we couldn’t control this elevator today, even though there’s a control panel right over there. We got in, pushed all the right buttons, and still here we are.”

“True, but if I hadn’t told my parents when I was nine that I wanted to act and that I was going to make the phone calls myself if they didn’t, I wouldn’t be in this elevator with you at all. I’d be in Kentucky, going to college or partying in the country and living out whatever life I would have had. I can’t even think about it because it doesn’t exist. I made this happen for myself. With a lot of help, but I decided to do it. It was my idea and my motivation and my determination that made it happen.”

“And your talent. And it doesn’t hurt that you’re adorable and charming with a jaw like…” In my current state I couldn’t think of a spectacular enough metaphor to do it justice. Besides, he knew already. “…like _that,_ and you have enough energy to power a small city.”

“No,” he grinned. “It doesn’t hurt. But I sleep _a lot_. And you’re not so bad yourself.” He raised an eyebrow. “You and your red lace underwear…” I scrunched up my nose and he frowned. ”…and you’re going to make me pay for saying that. Stop it.” He released my finger and reached over and punched me gently on the shoulder. “Stop making that face.”  

I unscrunched my nose but I stuck my tongue out at him. _Very mature,_ I told myself. And _I_ was the one of us who was legally allowed to drink. 

He returned his attention to my hand, and instead of just my pinky, this time he took my whole hand. His thumb stroked my knuckles softly as he stared at them and went somewhere in his head.

“Sometimes I don’t know why I get all the screaming fans instead of some of my other co-stars. I mean I get it, it’s my personality. And I don’t know if you noticed but I am pretty good looking.” Now it was my turn to punch him.

“Hey!” he laughed. “Don’t get me wrong, I eat that shit up, but sometimes I know I’m not what they think I am. I know who I am. I love who I am. But I don’t match up with the image. No one could. I know I’m not really what they want. Very rarely,” he grinned widely, “   because I am so awesome   I think that if they really knew _me_ they’d be disappointed. At least maybe some of the thirteen year olds. I have to be so careful to not say anything off-putting or too cocky or too sexual or get photographed drinking… Some people can just say whatever they want, and they get away with it because their fans are older or more jaded. I can’t. I feel like I have to respect my fans that way. But I have to live my life. I _need_ to live my life. It’s hard sometimes.”

“You are so…nice,” I looked at him. “I’d have a hard time feeling responsible to all those people. And a really hard time being nice with any of that going on.” I paused. “And you _are_ pretty fucking sexy. Which you are fully aware of.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “And you are a little bit nasty, aren’t you?”

He just nodded and grinned. Shamelessly.

“Well if we ever get out of here…” but I never got to finish my drunken proposition. As if on cue to save me from my inappropriate cougar/tiger/relevant feline self the car jolted and whirred to life. We sat up. We were moving. Then we stopped. The digital readout pinged from eight to nine and the doors opened.

And we were released.

I literally crawled out and took refuge against the nearest wall. Before I could breathe properly the person I could only assume was the front desk attendant was hovering over us, apologizing, offering various compensations. Someone retrieved my bag and my shoes from the elevator. It was several minutes of breathing and processing before I realized that I was still on the floor, and I was still a big fucking mess. And everyone was waiting for me to pull my shit together so they could get back to their jobs and lives. 

I stood up slowly, sliding up the wall, hoping to not draw any attention to myself. But I did. All eyes were on me. And I still had to get up to the 12th floor somehow. I had no idea how I was going to do that. In the vacuum of relief left by the departure of my anxiety my knees refused to lock and felt like they were going to fold out from underneath me just from standing up. 

Suddenly, predictably chivalrous, Mr. Hutcherson was at my side propping me up, dismissing the staff, reassuring everyone about everything. “I’ll make sure she gets to her room. Really. Thank you. You’ve been awesome.” With one hand he held me up, with the other he tipped them all so discreetly I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself. 

“What did you say your room number was?”

“1245,” I squeaked. “And I”m not getting back into a fucking elevator.” 

“No, of course not. Lets find the stairs.”


	6. [with a view]

We made it up the three flights of stairs. Eventually. And as promised he delivered me to my room. 

“Do you mind if I come in for a minute?” he asked. I stared at him blankly. I had not even remotely prepared for this possibility. 

“Can I put your stuff down?” he said, holding up my bag and shoes. I hadn’t even noticed that he’d been carrying them as well as me. “I just want to make sure you’re okay before I go. You should have some water. I should have some water. Don’t want to get dehydrated.” 

I stood in the doorway, dumfounded and tired and thirsty and hungry and overwhelmed and on the descending side of my inebriation. Ready to say goodbye. I had expected him to leave, to go back to his exciting life as soon as he possibly could. I kicked myself mentally. Fucking _nice_ people. 

“Yeah, sure,” I motioned, “Come in. Welcome to my mid-rate room with King size bed and balcony.” How could I deny him some water when he’d shared his booze, kept me from losing my mind and brought me limping on my last legs back to my room? 

He walked in and set my bag and shoes down on the bed. He looked out the floor to ceiling windows that made up the entire exterior wall of the room. The city was still visible but the sun was going down. 

“There’s your phone!” he declared excitedly, looking down at the table as if he had solved a mystery. 

“Yep. Exactly where I left it,” I fumbled around with the actual glass glasses in the sink. I was used to staying in hotels with styrofoam and paper.

“Thanks for this,” he said, coming up behind me. “You should have some too.”

Some of my other needs were becoming urgent. “I don’t know how I can be dehydrated when I have to pee so bad! Sorry. Hold these. I’ll be right back!” 

“Can I use your bathroom too?” he called out to my back as I made a beeline for the bathroom.

After I relieved myself I wiped the mascara circles from under my eyes and attempted to get my hair to do something besides just exist and not do what I wanted it to. It didn’t comply. It never did. I pulled it back into a ponytail and let it go. _What are you doing, Grace? What the hell are you doing?_  I asked the me in the mirror. She didn’t know. She never knew. All she ever did was give me a blank ass stare. Sometimes she flipped me off. 

When I walked out he handed me my glass of water, then pranced past me into the bathroom. I downed the water, refilled it and drank that too, then went to the bed and flopped face first into the down cover. It felt like falling into a cloud. 

I needed to get out of my dress. It felt tighter than a straight jacket, and it was going to take a Houdini-worthy mission to escape. I started a struggle with the zipper that I was not going to win. I heard him emerge from the bathroom and stop short. 

“Do you need some help?” he laughed. I groaned and indicated the zipper that ran down the length of my back. 

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said. 

“Please,” I said into the bed, but it sounded more like “Flea.” 

I wasn’t used to wearing things with zippers. Or dresses at all. I was wearing the simple gray shift dress and heels because I’d had a job interview that morning. I owned a total of three outfits that fit the company’s dress code, and I had to pick the one that was the hardest to get out of. 

He sat down next to me on the bed and I felt the release in the tension of the fabric as he popped the teeth open to the bottom. I sighed, my ribs free to take a full breath. The zipper ended just below the small of my back. He didn’t need to zip it all the way down, but he was proving to be an extra mile kind of guy. His fingers lingered for an extra second at the bottom of the zipper, which I was sure was giving him a peek at the scalloped lace waistband of my underwear. 

“Thanks,” I said. A quick shiver ran through me at the thought of what it would feel like if he slipped his hands inside my dress onto my bare skin, up my back to my bra, releasing the clasp, releasing another level of tension. I turned my head up and he pulled his hand back as if I had caught him having a very similar thought.

I realized he wasn’t leaving and that I didn’t want him to. 

I rolled over and sat up. “Do you…do you want to stay? For a little bit? Get some room service? Hang out?” I stammered. “It’s not the penthouse…” 

He shot me a wide hopeful grin, chock full of what I was coming to recognize as a heavy dose of Hutchercharm. “I’m really tired and there are so many stairs to the top of this building,” he wilted dramatically onto the bed. It was a performance worthy of a Victorian fainting couch. 

“You could always take the elevator.”

“No thanks. I’ve had enough of elevators for one day.” 

“I’ve had enough of elevators for my entire life, I think,” I complained. “At least the stairs are good exercise. I can save money on a gym membership.” 

He laughed. “That’s true.” 

I turned away from him as I checked my phone out of privacy preserving habit. No calls. That was good and bad. My mother hadn’t called, but neither had HR from my interview that morning. The interview had gone relatively well, I thought. And it was a job. But it was far from ideal. I would be doing tech writing, and I hated tech writing. All the people looked stuffy and gray and boring. So it was good that I’d worn my stuffiest grayest boringest dress. Except maybe not boring enough. Could they sense the blue hair I’d had just a month ago? The temporary color that had driven my mother crazy? _You’ll never get a job now!_ She’d nagged at me. _It will wash out mother. Jesus christ at a dollar store!_  I’d said. Could they tell that I liked my bed better when it was unmade? That I liked to paint every wall in my house a different color?  

“So…” he broke into my thoughts “…do you need help getting your dress the rest of the way off?” I looked back at him. His eyes were telling me what was going on in his pants.  

“Naughty!” I scolded. I pulled a t-shirt and a pair of shorts out of my bag and headed for the bathroom to change. “I’ll be right back. You think about what you want to eat.” I revised. “You think about what kind of _food_ you want to _order_.”

I decided on a chicken salad with strawberries. He had a burger and a shake. After ruling out fish tacos (his suggestion, which wasn’t serious _at all_ ), chinese food (my suggestion) and clams (guess). 

While we ate we talked. About zombies, I think. And vegans and dogs and cars and Paris, among other things. He sat cross legged in the chair, occasionally hugging his legs. He was a wiggler. And his grin was seriously infectious. He really should come with a CDC warning label. 

The conversation was light and easy and meaningless and I didn’t even mind that I wasn’t getting to crawl into bed and forget the whole day. After we were done though, our scotch wobbles and slurs completely gone, I found myself yawning and wanting to. 

But he wasn’t going away. 

“So do you remember what you were going to ask me? Right before we got out of the elevator? Something like… ‘If we ever get out of here…’” he said.

“Okay Rico Suave,” I drove a bulldozer over _that_ one, not even caring if he didn’t get the reference. “Now that we’re all rehydrated and fed and sober again, it’s bedtime for me. And I’m sure you’re tired too. Surely you’re tired of me.”

“Nope,” he said simply. His eyes were full of mischief and that look. The look that people get when they are up to no good at all. 

“What, you want to have a post traumatic stress sleepover?” I asked sarcastically, expecting him to say no. Willing him to say no. 

“Can we?” he said, his face brightening. Fuck. ”Best behavior. I promise. I really am tired and I don’t want to be alone. And I want to make sure you really are okay.” At least he was honest. And I was finding that I really didn’t want to be alone either. 

“I was just…okay, but I sleep naked.” 

“Awesome. So do I,” he grinned. 

I crawled under the blankets and shed my clothing and then my maybe-lucky-after-all lingerie beside the bed. He was peeling off his tank top (his chest, oh my god) and dropping his pants (his legs, oh my fucking god), leaving just his black boxer briefs, which he relieved himself of after he crawled under the covers as well. 

I pulled the blanket up around my neck. We were both naked. It was taking a few minutes to wrap my head around this. I was naked, in a hotel bed, with a famous person. We had just been trapped in an elevator for two hours, I was beyond tired, and I was in a bed with him. And we were naked. I turned over on my side.  

“Hey,” he said, settling into the pillow. He seemed a million times older suddenly for some reason. 

“Hey,” I replied. “Thanks for helping me get through that. Stuff.” I gestured vaguely toward the direction we’d come from when we got out of the elevator. 

“Not a problem. Thanks for letting me stay.”

“Frankly I am surprised that you want to.”

“Why? You’re interesting. I like you. I’m exhausted. It all works out.” 

“You really hate being by yourself.” 

“I get bored. I miss my dog.” 

“And I’m not boring?”

“You’re _naked_.” 

I eyed him suspiciously. 

“You’re completely safe with me,” he said softly. “And you’re not boring.” 

“I’m going to be really boring when I fall asleep. Even naked.” 

“So don’t go to sleep just yet.”

I felt his hand moving under the blanket towards me. I stretched my hand out to intercept. Being naked was fine, but touching right now was really against my rules. But when his fingers reached mine he stopped, our hands back to back, just barely making contact. Electricity snapped between us. Then he stretched out his index finger and pushed it slowly in between my fingers. Maybe because he was moving so slowly and we were so naked…it felt so insanely good. He slipped his digit back out, dragging the top into the skin at the crotch of my fingers. It was pornographically sweet and terrifyingly intimate. I moaned softly. 

“Does that fit the criteria for one of your scenarios?” 

“I think…I think you just invented a new one.”

“Are you turned on?”

“So turned on.” I slipped my other hand between my legs, feeling the need to cover myself protectively as well as touch, and squeezed my thighs together.   

“Me too.” 

“Lets not talk,” I said. I wanted more of his hand and my hand, our eyes connected, our teeth biting our lips. 

He pushed his finger back in between mine, this time turning it so the the fingerprint side of his fingertip lingered between when he pulled back out. Then he added another finger to another space, and another, until our hands were slowly fucking. Until I was spreading my fingers wide then clenching while he curled his fingertips into the palm of my hand before dragging them out again. He pressed the palm of his hand against the back of mine, squeezing, his fingertips pushing into my palm from the other side. I felt a rush of wetness between my legs, the fire burning underwater. His eyes were clouded, his breath and mine were both becoming short, ragged. I was pretty sure I was never going to think of hand holding the same way ever again. 

“Are you touching yourself?” he asked. The gold flecks in his eyes were glittering in the sunset light that streamed in through the window wall. 

“Yes.” I had dipped a finger between my lips, feeling the slickness, miming the rhythm of his fingers in my hand. The nerve center of the flame that licked up and into me was pulsing and solidifying and pinpoints of light burst behind my eyes when I touched the thin tissue of skin, pushing it down toward the edge of my outsides, where the aching insides started, rubbing over the small pink focal point of all this want. I was so fucking sensitive already that that I felt like I could probably get off on that sensation alone, without even a direct touch. I had never been this sensitive at this point in one of my usual encounters. 

“Me too,” he panted. I glanced down and I could see the movement under the blanket. I could only imagine what it looked like to see him pump his hand up and down on his cock, wondered how hard he was, how tight his balls were. I wanted to see him. If he was pale or ruddy, veined or smooth, the particulars of his shape and size. The want was good enough for now. I watched him moving, the steady rhythm that also matched his other hand in mine. 

“The look on your face right now,” he breathed. I was too tired and distracted to worry about accepting or reacting to that. I decided to address the issue at hand. So to speak. 

“Usually I don’t…we don’t…me, my partners don’t…touch ourselves. Yet. But this feels so… fucking… good…” I groaned.  I ignored the fact that I’d just used the words “usually” and “partner” in the context of our immediate situation.

“Really fucking good…” he echoed, and his eyes rolled back in his head for a second then reconnected to mine; his mouth was in constant motion, reacting with a new formation to each movement he made. 

“We should stop, before you come,” I said. 

“I will,” he panted, “I promise. Trust me. Let go, Grace. Let go.” 

“Okay…” I realized I believed him, and then I lost the thought as I gave in to the sensations, the look in his eyes, the way the tendons in his jaw flexed when he moaned, his one hand literally finger fucking mine, the other jerking back and forth furiously in my direction under the cover of some medium high thread count hotel sheets.  


	7. [the agreement]

Tuesday

He stopped himself, his breath heavy, his eyes dark. I could tell he didn’t want to. I decided it was time to verbalize our unspoken agreement. I waited until he settled. 

“I have to ask you a question,” I said. 

“Okay…” he said. 

“Since we just…did that, and this isn’t usually how I do…things, I just need to clarify what’s going on here on your end.”

“I thought we were having a sleepover,” he said as he propped his head up and gave me a grin that could defrost a mammoth.  

“You know what I mean. You know what you’re in for, right? With me?”

“Yeah, I know. Grace. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t understand. I’m here for a week. I can change my plans if I want to. I have the morning show, and plans Friday night, but I’m all yours the rest of the time. No commitments, obligations or further intentions, right? We have our fun   and I’m really interested in you having your fun   then we go our separate ways.”

“Right. And I’d never ask you to change your plans. Just tell me if you want out. I’ll understand.”

“I know.”

This was all happening alarmingly quickly. Unless I was in a relationship, I’d always arranged things beforehand, sometimes months ahead. I laid everything out before we started. I’d researched the methods, the scenarios, I knew what would happen. I had rules. Boundaries. This was…this was new. I actually had no idea what I could do, what my body would do. And it wanted to do everything. 

He reached for my other arm and pulled my hand from between my legs and held them both. “I’m here,” he sighed. “Don’t kick me out now.” No one had ever been this agreeable. Maybe I had just been finding all the wrong men 

“You don’t mind the discomfort? No orgasms for maybe two days.”

He shrugged. “It’s nothing new. It’s not that terrible. Don’t believe those guys.” God. He was unbelievable. “I just won’t be able to ride a bike for a few days.”

I stared at him.

“I’m kidding. I’m kidding. It’s fine.”

“I need to sleep,” I said quietly. 

“Me too.”

We fell asleep quickly with our hands hopelessly entangled, and when I woke up thirsty a few hours later, they still were. I extricated myself and he stirred, but he didn’t wake. 

I couldn’t go back to sleep. My mind was restless; there was just too much. I got up and got some water, wishing I had something a little harder to drink. I sat down in one of the chairs and put my feet up on the table, ankles crossed. I was naked in front of a full glass wall of windows, exposed to the city. 

All the rooms here were like this. I wondered how many people living nearby watched the guests. Free porn. Can’t beat it.

I was so lost in my head, trying to navigate the past eighteen hours without success, that I didn’t hear him get out of bed. 

“Hey naked lady,” he said softly from beside me. 

I jumped and turned my head. “Hey… Whoa. Hello naked guy.” He was standing barely a foot away from me with his junk right at eye level. Some of my questions were now answered. I forced my eyes up to his face. 

“Come sit down, big guy. And bring Josh with you.” I indicated the dark square of the empty chair across from me. 

He laughed and shifted his hips, drawing my eyes back down. He was fairly spectacular, even completely soft. “Do you want something to drink? I was kind of craving some scotch.”

“Oh my god, yes please. I was just thinking I wished I had something to drink.” I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. 

When he came back with the drinks he had his underwear on.

“Not fair,” I pouted. 

He nodded to the window. ”Can’t take any chances. You know someone caught Hillary Duff’s husband proposing inside a hotel room? And then the celebratory blowjob she gave him? People are sneaky,” he shook his head. ”So what are you doing up?”

I sighed heavily. “Thinking. Processing. Today…yesterday was…it was long.”

“Yeah. It was. But some of it was good, right?” 

“Some of it was incredible. The rest…well you know. You were there for most of it.”  
  
“What else happened to you yesterday?” he asked, incredulous.

“I had a job interview. I’m unemployed, remember? And dying to get out of my mother’s guest bedroom so she can fuck the bald insurance salesmen she brings home like she wants to. Loud. 

“Oh my god.”

“Yeaaaah.” 

“So did you get the job?”

“I don’t know yet. I’ll take it, if they offer it to me. I need it. But fuck, it’s boring.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re a rare one, you know. You knew what you wanted to do, you did it, and now you’re successful. It must be really gratifying.” 

“It is.” He paused for a bit. “It really is. It’s hard work, and I have to make some sacrifices. Like my privacy. But I knew what I was getting into. My parents made sure I knew the cost of fame, even though they also tried to give me a childhood that was as normal as possible when we were back home.”

“They sound nice.” Nice people breed nice people, I guess. _I should never have kids,_ I thought. 

“They are.”

I took a sip of the amber liquid he’d deposited by my feet on the table as he sat down. “This stuff really is good,” I said. 

“It should be. It’s not the best they make, it’s only fifteen years old, not eighteen. But I wasn’t planning on sharing and there is really no occasion to celebrate. Except us meeting. But I hadn’t planned on that.”

“Fifteen _years_?”

“Yeah. They age it in oak barrels for fifteen or however many years. In Scotland. Whisky (without an e) is Scotch and comes from Scotland. And Bourbon comes from Kentucky, and Sour Mash comes from Tennessee. All whiskey. It’s all very complicated and it involves spelling and geography.”

“So it’s like champagne. Comes from the Champagne region of France. Otherwise it’s sparkling wine.”  
  
“Exactly.”  
  
“Huh. Learn new things every day. Or night, as it were.” I picked up my phone from the table. “Jesus it’s three in the morning.”  
  
“Some of the best things happen at three in the morning,” he grinned. 

“I’m not even going to ask you about that one,” I scoffed. “I was twenty once. I know how it goes.”  

I leaned my head back and rubbed my stomach as the burn of the whiskey slowly turned to a pleasant warmth. I’d almost forgotten I wasn’t alone, it was so nice. Until he shifted and the fabric of the chair rustled. I raised my head to see if he was looking at me or the city. Me. But his gaze didn’t make me feel uncomfortable. I didn’t feel like he was scrutinizing me for flaws. He was just…looking.

So I looked at him. He may have put his boxer briefs back on, but I could still see enough of him to more than make me a happy woman. The curve of his broad shoulders, the concave slope of the muscles in his flat stomach as he sank back into the chair. The patch of hair on his chest, and the trail that led from his belly button to disappear under his waistband. The light was being exceptionally kind to the angles of his face. He was lovely. I couldn’t see much of his legs, because they were at an angle that was not ideal, but they were covered with enough hair to make them fuzzy in the moonlight. 

“What are you thinking about?” he asked me. 

“That I am having trouble believing that I’m not just hallucinating all of this. You. Yesterday. Everything.”

“I’m real,” he said. “Come here and I’ll show you.”

I stood up and walked over to his chair and waited for him to show me. He took my hand and pulled me down until I slid into his lap. He reached up for my neck with his other hand and tucked my head into his shoulder. His fingers strummed through my hair absentmindedly. So fidgety. It felt so nice though…

“I know you’re real,” I said while I played with his chest hair. “It’s just unusual. For me. I mean, you’re you all the time so obviously it’s not weird for you.”

He looped his arms around my hips and I pulled my knees up, pointing my feet and sliding them in between his leg and the inside of the chair arm. “Yeah, but I don’t usually spend the night with people I just met having semi-sex.”

“What, usually you spend the night with people you just met having full on sex?” 

“Usually.” He laughed as I pulled a punch to his gut. 

“So cocky!” I sighed. I guess he got to be. I didn’t begrudge him his right or ability to have one night stands. I would have them if they didn’t frustrate the hell out of me. It was neater and much easier to have one night as opposed to five or seven. “There’s a first time for everything I guess. Semi-sex. That’s a good one. I might steal it.”

“Let me get my lawyer on the phone.”

“Okay okay, I’ll give you credit if I ever use it. ‘Would you like to have semi-sex with me? That phrase was coined by Josh Hutcherson, by the way, when we had semi-sex.’ I can see that going over well.”

He chuckled low in his chest. We stayed there for awhile, staring at the city, holding on for whatever reasons we had. Maybe I needed real human contact every once in awhile. Maybe it just felt good and that was okay.

Maybe too good. I tried not to notice the solid mass forming beneath me until he got uncomfortable and had to shift to adjust. I lifted my hips to allow him to get his hand in to assist.

“Sorry,”  he said. “You’re hot and naked. In my lap.”

“Was that a compliment?” I nudged him softly.

“Yes.”

I kissed him lightly on the side of his neck and felt him surge up hard against me.

“Thank you.” I said. And I meant it. ”Let's go back to bed Mr. Hutcherson.” 

“Okay Ms. Jones,” he said. “Wanna cuddle?”

“What were we just doing?" 

“I know but it’s different horizontally.”

“That’s why it’s a no. Not yet, dude.” 

“Now who’s not being fair?” 

“Me,” I said. “But you can hold my hand.”  

“Okay.”

 


	8. [revelations]

Tuesday

In the morning I was hungry and hungover and my mouth felt like I’d been eating alcohol flavored brick dust. And I was naked. The sun was just starting to crack the sky and I didn’t feel like getting out of bed quite yet, but my bladder forced the issue. Josh was still asleep. I managed to pad quietly to the bathroom and back without waking him.

The sheets had slipped down around his waist at some point and I had a full view of his torso. I leaned in to get a closer look at the anchor on his ribs just as he opened his eyes. 

“Whatcha doin’?” he asked sleepily. Damn, that morning voice was nice.

“Checking you out,” I said.

“Yeah? You like?” he rubbed his eyes and raked a hand through his hair.

“Your ink is cool. Very classic.”

“Thanks,” he said. “I have more. Wanna see?”

I nodded, and he pulled the sheet down just enough to reveal the words on his hip. I traced it with my finger, dipping into the curve of his hip. _"Be Yourself."_ I smiled and he shrugged. Then he rolled over to show me the ship that was at the top of his back and the sign on his wrist. “Do you have any?” he asked. 

“I do. Who doesn’t?” I rolled over and pulled back my hair.

“Can you…” I indicated the sheets.

“Yeah, how far?” he asked.

“Waist,” I said. He slid the sheets down slowly.

“Nice. Can I touch it?” I nodded. He traced the anatomical line drawing of a heart that lived right behind where my real heart was. His touch was so light it tickled a bit and I squirmed. “Sorry,” he said, and adjusted the firmness of his touch, but he smiled like a little kid. “What are these letters? Initials?”

“Yes,” I said quietly. I paused, considering whether or not to explain it all.

“Everyone I know who’s…you know. Gone.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s okay. It’s so I don’t forget. It’s on my back because it’s behind me, it’s in the past. But they’re always part of me, even if I forget it’s there. It’s on my left side because because two of them left…on purpose. Also conveniently the correct location to be right behind my actual heart.”

“Whoa.”

“Yeah,” I was tired of this kind of show and tell. It was time for a new version. “Anyway.” I rolled over onto my back and tucked my hands under my head, exposing myself from the waist up. He raised an eyebrow but didn’t complain.

“It’s fair,” I shrugged. “I get to see your nipples. And besides, being topless in public isn’t technically illegal for women in a lot of places. This is one of them.”

“Right on. But we’re not in public.”

I shrugged. His eyes didn’t move from my face. At least not a lot. He took one of my hands and moved it to my body, resting it gently over one of my breasts. Then he repeated himself with my other hand. 

“Remember in the elevator, when we were talking about dick pics and you said you didn’t spend time laying in bed staring at your boobs?”

“Mmmmhmmm.” 

“I want to see you lay in bed and stare at your boobs,” he said, his grin as wide and bright as a summer sky.

“Brace yourself for a compliment,” he said.

I groaned inwardly. I was maybe getting better at this, a little bit? I didn’t feel as much overwhelming dread I usually did.

“I was noticing last night when we were up. I like this line, here,” he pointed to the curve that ran from underneath and curved up and around into my armpit. I followed it with my finger. “And your nipples…” he licked his lips subconsciously, “they’re so perfectly round. Circles on circles on circles.” Taking my cue from the motions of his mouth, I pulled one to my lips and sucked, leaving a thin layer of moisture behind. He blew on it gently, his warm breath cooling quickly. I gasped as my nipples tightened.

“You’re good,” I grinned. “You are going to be fun.”

“I do my best.” His smile was a fascinating mix of confidence and shyness, his bottom lip suddenly trapped by his top teeth.

He tipped his chin at my breasts, returning my attention to my chest. “I want to watch you look at them and touch them. Own them. Pretend you take pictures of them and have them on your phone, even though you know that’s risky. Even if you had no one to show them to, but you wished you did. Because you know they’re that fucking awesome.”

I took one breast in each hand. I looked at him to see if he was watching. He pulled up and settled his chin on my shoulder and his head on the pillow right next to me so that he was getting nearly the same view as I had.

“Don’t look at me,” he said softly, nodding toward my chest. 

I felt like I was looking at myself through his eyes, for the first time. The same breasts I stuffed into bras, shifted around, washed, cursed, spilled things on… these everyday things were suddenly new to me. I squeezed them together and pushed them apart. I pulled and pushed my nipples, I looked at the lines they made, the curves and the surfaces in the morning light.

“You are beautiful,” he said suddenly.

I froze and glared at him. “Thank you,” I said, suspicious. “You didn’t warn me that time.”

“Sorry. It just…came out. Excited utterance.” 

I laughed. “Isn’t that a legal term? If I remember my TV legalese correctly.”

“Haha, I don’t know. I’m sure it was in some dialogue somewhere that stuck in my head.”

“Everything I know about the legal stuff I learned from Law & Order.”

“That’s probably what it’s from,” he chuckled.  

He laid back down on the pillow and I relaxed back into the bed, my hands still covering my chest. 

“What’s next?” he asked.

“Breakfast?”

“Awww, so soon?” 

“What would you like to do, Mr. Hutcherson?”

“Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Call me ’Mr. Hutcherson.’”

“It’s your name, right?”

“Yeah, but you could call me Josh. I’m not really a formal guy. At least in situations like this.”

“Okay. Josh.” I thought about it for a minute. “I guess I’m trying to make myself feel like you’re older. Or I’m younger. One of those.” It was a layer between us that I put up without even thinking about it. 

“Age is just a number,” he smiled.

“I suppose.”

He looked at me and I felt his attention shift. ”So are the things we’ve already done off limits? Like, maybe things that you did to me?”

“Such as?”

“Maybe another kiss?” I wanted to already but I hadn't been able to bring myself say it. “We didn’t really get to really explore things. Fully.”

“Okay.” I pulled the sheet back up over my chest.

“Hey,” he frowned.

I shrugged. “Same as before. I was covered. You want me to get dressed?”

“How about a compromise? Half dressed. I want to see you in that red stuff.” He nodded in the general direction of my lingerie on the floor.  

“Okay. I can do that. You want to watch me put it on?”

His eyebrow shot up. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, why not.”

He settled into the bed and put his hands behind his head. He looked so smug I considered taking it all back. 

I pulled the sheet off and turned to sit on the edge of the bed so that he was looking at all of my back and backside. I spread my legs wide and leaned over to pick up my undergarments from where I’d dropped them the night before. I raised up off the bed, revealing myself to him a little at a time. 

I heard some kind of noise that may have been human as I straightened my legs completely and bent over at the waist, leaning fully forward. I picked up my underwear, slipped my legs in one at a time and stood up slowly, pulling them up at the same time, snapping the scallops at my lower back. Then I turned towards him and slipped my bra onto my shoulders, pulling it up to my chest. I reached behind me and fastened it. 

Done with my reverse strip tease I crawled toward him on the bed until I was inches from his face. “Damn,” he growled at me, teeth bared.  

“Are you saying I should I go brush my teeth?” I tipped my head at him. Luckily I had done that earlier when I’d used the bathroom. Scotch mouth.

“You should stop talking,” he said. He took my face in his hands and pulled me down to him. I moved closer to avoid falling over, placing a hand on the pillow on the other side of his head. I remembered that he was naked and I was separated from his southern region by a thin layer of very smooth egyptian cotton. And the South was rising. His kiss started slow but urgent. His tongue parted my lips and his fingers tightened at the back of my neck, sliding into my hair, bringing my whole face into the kiss. I tucked the lower half of my body under so that I was seated next to his chest. Now that falling over wasn’t a danger, I could fully reciprocate. 

Kissing him was like trying to eat fire. It both fed and consumed me. His lips were nimble and his tongue was quick when it needed to be and slow when he could. He reached into places I never would have thought to go. It was like he was trying to pull my heart out through my mouth. 

When we separated his eyes bored deep into mine, picking up the work where his tongue had left off. They were wide but they were very far from innocent. 

This really was going to be fun. 

“So,” I said. “How about this compromise. Breakfast in bed?”

“Are you on the menu?”  he asked as he attempted to pull me down again for another round, but I collapsed in a fit of giggles next to him. ”That bad?” he groaned.

“Oh my god,” I laughed, and rolled over to face him. 

He threw an arm around my waist and tried again. “Are you…on the menu?” Except the only thing he changed was his delivery, which was extra heavy on the Shatner. His fingers tightened into my back and he gave me a self-satisfied grin that told me I was giving him the reaction he wanted as I dissolved into laughter again. 

“You’re killing me.” Tears rolled from my eyes and down my cheeks.

“No dying,” he said. 

He fingered the strap of my bra and traced the same line he’d pointed out to me earlier. 

“Do you want breakfast or not?” I asked.

“Yes. Lets have breakfast. What time is it?” He rolled over to retrieve his phone from his pants on the floor. The sheet didn’t quite cover him as he leaned over the side of the bed. 

“Are you looking at my ass?” he called up from the side of the bed without looking back.

“Yep. It’s awesome.” It really was. I didn’t get a really good look at it during our 3 a.m. conversation. I’d honestly been distracted by the other view. And not the view of the city. I lifted up the sheet and peeked underneath. 

“Hey! That’s cheating!” 

“I make the rules, remember?” I ran my hand along the line from his ribs to his hip, then down to trace the round curve above his leg. He was pale and firm. I had the almost irresistible urge to take a nice thick bite, but that would have crossed a line I didn’t want to cross yet. 

He sighed heavily, then rolled back up, revealing a serious tent in the sheet, still looking at his phone. 

“Am I distracting you?” I asked. 

“No, the phone is to distract me from you.” 

“Awww.” I pulled the sheet down a few inches, exposing his hip bones and the lowest part of his belly. And the line of hair that ran down from his bellybutton to below. “Why do you need to be distracted from me?” 

“No reason.” 

“Really?” I pulled the sheet down to his thighs. He gasped softly as his cock wavered with the slight pull, his skin stretched taut, glistening soft in the morning light. “That doesn’t bother you?” 

“Nope.” 

I was having trouble keeping my hands to myself. The sight of him standing there, hard and smooth and bare begged for hands and mouth and…well I had a lot of ideas.  

He cleared his throat. “I’m ordering breakfast. Do you want fruit? Pancakes?”  

“Can I have sausage?” I dragged a finger down the trail of hair to the thatch of more carefully trimmed hair it connected to.

He made that shivery sound that people make when they’re so sensitive it almost hurts. “Sure,” he choked out.

“Just kidding, fruit.” My finger moved out and around, to the crease between his legs where his balls were cradled, skin soft and loose. 

“Do you want cream on your fruit?”

“Not really.”

“Then you better stop, because you’re going to get the cream before the fruit even gets here.”

“Okay, okay. It’s just so big and…pretty.” 

“Pretty?” Now I had some of his attention. 

“Handsome?” 

“Better.” 

“Suckable?”

“Seriously, you’re going to have a mess on your hands soon.” 

“Hmmmm.”

“Hmmmm what?” he peeked at me from around his phone.

“I’m thinking I’d like to see you.”

“Um, you are seeing me.” 

“I mean I want to see you get yourself off.” 

His cock jumped. Now I had his full attention. 

“Would you now,” he said, his voice suddenly thick with arousal.

“Yes.” I moved up to sit next to him on his left side, our shoulders touching. 

He set his phone down on the side table and rubbed his hands together, then down each side of his body, stopping when they framed his thick and soaring erection. 

“Are you sure?” he looked at me.

“Don’t look at me,” I nodded downward.

He didn’t need any further encouragement. He started with long slow strokes up toward us. He increased speed as his breath became heavier, bobbing quickly just under his plump, swollen head. Drops of clear fluid seeped from him and in one swipe he spread it along his underside, making use of the natural lubrication. 

“Fuck!” He spit out the exclamation as he threw his head back for a second, his pumping now heavy and full. I slid my hand down my stomach and under the edge of my underwear. “Fuck, Grace. Yes.” 

I sank my fingers inside myself and his abs popped in and out of full relief as his body prepared to expel the product of his efforts. He bucked his hips upward as I pulled my underwear down to my knees and opened my legs. He made a noise that might have been a groan, might have been a cry, might have been a prayer as he came. From the distance and repetition he got, he was more than a little pent up. 

“Let me get something to clean that up,” I said as I pulled my panties back up. He said nothing, just melted back into the bed, phone forgotten, liquid dotted across his stomach. 

“This is a good look for you,” I said as I handed him a towel. 

“Thanks?”

“You’re welcome.” I curled up next to him as he cleaned himself. When he was done he put an arm around my shoulders and drew me in. “So when does breakfast get here?” I asked. 

He buried his face in the top of my head, stroking my shoulder absently, his breathing still a little erratic. 

“Soon,” he said. “Very soon.”

 

 


	9. [l a t e r]

He checked his phone a lot. _A lot._

We’d finished our breakfast in bed. He was preoccupied with his phone and I was just enjoying my belly full of sweetness. 

“I have to go soon. I need to go up to my room and shower. Then I have some things I need to take care of.” He said it like he expected resistence. I didn’t know why, I wasn’t going to give him any.

“Okay,” I said. He’d already been with me coming up on a whole day. Honestly I’d expected him to duck out much earlier. Like yesterday. 

“But do you want to get together later?”  
  
“I would love to ‘get together’ later.” I made air quotes around the words, popping the last raspberry into my mouth.  

“That sounds interesting,” he pecked me on the nose and got up to get dressed. 

“Text me,” I said. 

“Give me your number.”

I held out my hand for his phone. “Unlock it and I’ll call myself. Yours isn’t blocked or anything, is it?”

“No, but I don’t want it getting out.”

“Of course not. My  phone is sealed.”

He unlocked his phone. “Why don’t you just tell me your number and I’ll call you?”

“Because, you can learn a lot about a person by what their screen saver is. I was trying to be sneaky.” Really I just wanted to see if he’d hand over his phone. Apparently not.

“Jeez, woman. Just ask. It’s my dog. See? His name is Driver.” Or maybe he would. He gave me the phone with the picture of the floppy, velvety gray pit bull puppy who obviously adored him.

“Oh my god. He’s adorable.” I said, handing him his phone back. 

“He is a sweetheart,” he said.

“Where is he now?” I asked.

“With my roommate.”

“You have a _roommate?_  ” Why did he have a roommate? “Don’t you make like, a gazillion dollars a film or something?” 

“Yeah. No. Not quite a gazillion. Just a zillion.” He pursed his lips. “I don’t like being alone, remember?” 

“Oh yeah,” I said quietly. I still found it hard to remember that. Something that rarely bothered me bothered most people.   
  
He was completely dressed now. I rattled off my phone number and heard my phone buzz from the table.

“Done,” he said.

I crawled to the edge of the bed and tried to reach the table without getting down. It was a stretch, but I did it. I turned around holding the phone up in triumph and caught the look on his face. It was somewhere between amusement and randy appreciation. I was still wearing just the bra and panties. 

“Were you just staring at my ass?” I asked.

“Maybe,” he said. There were approximately fifty different variations on the basic Hutchergrin that I’d seen so far. This one was downright carnal. It would have been kind of gross and Jersey Shore if he didn’t have that damn face of his. “Maybe I was just watching to see if you would fall off of the bed. But if I was is that so bad? I like your ass more the more I see it.” 

I put my phone down on the sheets and scooted on my knees to the edge of the bed, into his space. I wasn’t naked, but I was wearing a lot less than he was. He picked up on my ever so subtle signals. His arms slid around me and he grabbed my ass with both hands. I put my arms up around his neck. 

“God, you feel good,” he moaned as he palmed and kneaded my flesh.

“This party is officially to be continued,” I reached between us and traced the outline of his hard on.

“You are 100% evil. Good thing I like pure evil.”

“You’ll like it more later, I promise.”

“You’re killing me. I have to go before I lose it and throw you down on the bed and fuck you silly.” Heat flared between my legs and I felt a stab of want that begged me to let him.

“Patience is a virtue,” I said. “Trust me, I know.”

“I know you do.” He kissed me lightly. “You taste sweet.”

“Good sweet?” 

“Very good sweet. But I have to go. I have like, seventeen phone calls to make, a phone conference with my agent, emails to return and a few things to pick up before tomorrow morning. What are you going to do?”

“Shower and sleep.” 

“Naked?”

“Most likely. Unless I catch any neighbors with a telescope.” 

“You could close the curtains.”  
  
“That is an excellent idea.”

“Okay. I’ll text you later, yes?”

“Mmmmhmm.” I snuggled back down into the bed.

He sat down on the edge.

“I thought you were leaving.”  
  
“I am. I just wanted to say something first.”

Uh oh. Serious talk? “Should I be scared?”

“No,” a small smile picked up one corner of his mouth as he looked down, then back up at me. “I just wanted to say…that I can see little glimpses of who you are, really, underneath all the stuff you do to keep people away. I think you’re interesting. You’re fun to hang out with. And…” now he leaned in and brushed his lips against mine, his breath hot against my mouth, “…I like kissing you. I want to do more of that later.” He kissed me assertively now. And fuck, he was good at it. I felt something bloom in my chest that I didn’t quite know what to do with, but it felt like something opening up and it wasn’t comfortable as much as it just felt right, like this should happen when someone you like kisses you well. 

He smiled as he pulled away, tucking his bottom lip under his teeth. Another sensation flared a bit lower that I did know what to do with. I wanted to try and keep it as long as I could. I wanted him to keep kissing me. It was a delicious feeling that sank deep and settled into the cradle of my pelvis and I savored it, adding it to the things to remember when it was time to try and get over the edge. 

“I’ll see you later, okay?” he said. “I don’t know when I’ll be done. It might be late. Why don’t you come up to my room tonight? I’ll text you when I get finished with everything.”  
  
“I don’t know, that’s a lot of stairs…”

He poked me in the ribs. “If you don’t want to see me, I guess you don’t have to.” He pretended to be hurt. “I do have the morning show pretty early. It would probably be better for me to get some rest.” 

“Fine, fine, I’ll climb the damn stairs!”

“Good,” he smiled and got up off of the bed. He turned and waved as he passed into the entrance and out of sight.

“Bye.” I waved to the empty wall as I heard the door lock click. I was suddenly a little wistful. I picked up my phone and entered his number as a contact, wishing I’d snapped a picture to put to the name. It didn’t occur to me that I could just look for one on the internet. He was no ordinary contact. But I wasn’t used to thinking that way about him.

Then I couldn’t keep my eyes open any more. I felt better than I had in years. I let my eyelids flutter shut and I sank deep, quickly. I slept well for the first time in a long while. 


	10. [subtext]

 

 


	11. [s l i p]

Tuesday morning/afternoon

I spent the rest of the morning in bed. I put up the do not disturb sign and crashed. Hard. I woke up on the side of the bed he’d slept on the night before. It was really strange, the way scent could instantly transport you back to a certain moment, even if that moment was less than twenty four hours ago. Or less than twelve.  

He smelled like sweat and pepper and hotel soap and expensive toiletries and the faint sweetness of whisky and something else I just couldn’t identify, which was probably just…him. That unique scent fingerprint that everyone has. The funny thing is though that people smell differently to each other depending on their genetic makeup. I saw it on the discovery channel one time. Something about robustness and immunity. People who smell good to each other have immunities to different bacteria that live on the skin, so their offspring will get a better chance at being immune to both. He smelled really good…

When I realized that I’d had my face buried in the soft cotton pillow for over half an hour, my head bouncing between memories and random bits of pop science trivia I threw the pillow back on the bed and got up. A little frustrated, a little disgusted with myself, but definitely turned on. Damn it. Damn him. Damn _me_. 

It was time for yoga. This morning’s activities were affecting my practice. Normally I could block out everything and micro in on individual muscles, pushing my breath through, cleaning out all the mental gunk. But in the middle of down dog I lost my focus thinking about his ass, and the dark forest of hair on his sturdy thighs. I lost it in warrior two thinking about the way the muscles that scaled his ribs moved when he did. In tree pose I gave up and got into the shower. 

My mind still kept wandering back to him. I didn’t even bother to try and stop it this time. I reversed direction, letting it all flow through me and wash away, down the drain and out to sea. The sea was a good place to put desire. Bury it under sextillions of kilograms of salt water. Of course the problem with that is that sea water is the same pH as amniotic fluid and the depths of the ocean are also a good place to gestate something you might not want to grow. But I wasn’t thinking about that. 

I thought about the way he looked in the middle of the night, the way he felt in the morning…the way his cum sprayed onto his stomach, the way his face contorted and relaxed when it happened. The way he felt under my hands. I let those same hands wander my body, finding the few places that he’d touched, the places he’d touched with his eyes. The places I’d touched while he touched me, the places I’d touched while he touched himself. 

I felt the familiar pressure building. I knew this game. My fingers played between my legs like an instrument I knew too well and I stood wide, working the folds and the nub and niche. I had a stray thought, something small and stupid like a crack in the tile or an anomaly in the paint color, and just like a light switch, it was all gone. Fled. I sighed and leaned against the glossy black wall. It was always the same. I always ran out of gas right before reaching the destination. And on this journey you can’t just get out and walk. 

I got out of the shower frustrated and emotionally drained. Lunch and a nap were in order. 

Room service brought up my sushi and sparkling water. I ate quickly and fell into the bed again. But my brain wouldn’t shut up. It kept trying to make me relive the last two days. Which would have been good if it had been the good parts, but I’d pretty much been over those in the shower and mined them for all they were worth. 

I kept slipping back into that feeling of panic, of losing control of not only my life but my mind. The feeling that when you know what you’re feeling isn’t rational, but you can’t stop it; you’re completely powerless to stop any of it. I had to keep reminding myself that I never truly lost it. That I had never let myself fall. And if I was being honest, that he had helped keep me from falling off of that edge too many times. I was both grateful to him and resentful of him. And despite his charm, when he wasn’t with me I found my ambivalence about our situation growing. 

Why was I on the verge of fucking the brains out of this (by the way, very famous) guy I’d just met, letting him into my room, into my head, into my life. Not my life. _Just my life this week_ , I corrected myself. I had the sudden urge to text him and close it all off, shut it all down, run as fast as I could. Why did he want to spend any time with me anyway? My body wasn’t bad, he’d made it clear that he found me worth fucking. Worth spending his week on. He was bored and lonely not used to being alone, I presented a challenge to his ego. 

But he scared me with his intense kindness. I decided it wasn’t just niceness. Niceness is when you’re polite and you do what is socially acceptable and you do it because you may be a good person or you may just feel that the alternatives are worse or more uncomfortable. He was kind. The worst kind of kind, the kind that didn’t give up. But why not give up on me? 

Some of the things I’d seen in his eyes were just so…I didn’t know. There seemed to be a lot going on in his head. But he didn’t have much conflict, like I did. His pieces all meshed, they all worked like clockwork. The only thing that was clear to me was that I was developing a serious weakness for him and if I knew what was best for both of us I’d stop seeing him right now. But he was fun, and funny, and sexy. He made me feel good, and I really did want to give him a shot at getting up my mountain. 

I knew what drew me to him. He was young and adorable and sweet and raunchy and creative and smart and…I had to stop myself. I was getting that feeling again, the same one I got when he’d kissed me and I’d felt my chest open up. What the fuck was that? I’d been in love before, the painfully intense kind, the unrequited kind, the kind you just can’t help, and I’d never felt anything like this. 

I slipped back into thinking about his face…his face would be the death of me. I wanted to lick it and bury it between my legs and kiss it until I couldn’t anymore. I could stare at him for a long time. Which was probably what made him good in front of the camera, I reminded myself. And that smile… well, all of the smiles. All of the different ways his face looked, the way it changed shape and his eyes changed color slightly sometimes and his goddamned gorgeous penis and FUCK. I’d only known him for two fucking days. Not even a full 48 hours. Not even 36. I had to let go. I was getting in too far. 

What did he see in me? I wracked my brain. I kept going back to what he’d said. That he could see parts of who I really was under all the things I do to keep people away. What the fuck did that mean? I was always who I really was, those things I did to keep people away were part of me as much as whatever kernel of Pure Grace he thought he saw. What was Pure Grace? Who the fuck was she and why was she interesting? I had no idea. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t fathom it. I knew who I was. I was okay with it all. But I wasn’t comfortable being looked at, I wasn’t comfortable with attention, or with someone seeing the real me, whoever or whatever that was. Unless it was him looking at me. Fuck everything holy, he made me feel so comfortable in my own skin. I had liked it. So much. 

I could ask him. But that meant talking to him again, and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to do that anymore. It really was better to just rip off this Hutcherson bandaid and get on with my week. I had things to do, jobs to get, a bed to sleep in where no one I knew was listening to my every move, waiting for me to leave. I’d fucking paid for my week and I was taking it. 

Ugh. What did he see? It was nagging at me now, and it was bringing up unpleasant memories. Another person had “seen things” in me once before and that had been the worst experience of my life. 

I reached into the nightstand drawer and popped a pill. I was going the fuck to sleep, whether my brain liked it or not. 

[+2 hours]

I woke up screaming. In my dream it was dark, and I was so scared I’d lost all control of my body. I couldn’t move. I was locked in a small space, a metal space, and it was hot and I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t scream and I couldn’t wake up, until my throat managed to break my sleep paralysis and push the sound out. I was hyperventilating. It was not okay to be going back to that place right now. It was too much. I couldn’t do it. Not with everything going on. But I guess I should have expected this to surface, considering what I’d been through in that stupid steel box. 

I had the urge to call my mother, to hear her voice.  It was irrational, but sometimes you just need your mother, and she was the only one I’d ever had. It had been years since she had brought me any comfort. But there was the one time, when she’d come to see me in the hospital; when she held my hand like she had when I was a child and told me she was sorry. But it hadn’t lasted long. By the time I was discharged it was all my fault again. 

I was nineteen when it happened. I was walking home late after working late at the coffee shop in the town where I was going to school. I felt a sudden pressure on the back of my head and then I was looking at the ground from the ground. My glasses were smashed, my body was being pressed hard into the grit from behind me. 

“You’re mine now, girl,” the voice had said in my ear, snaking into my head like a song I didn’t want to hear. “Mine forever.” 

That’s when I had lost consciousness and my life as I had known it.

But I couldn’t think about any of that. Not now.

 


	12. [good enough]

Tuesday night

Fuck. I wanted to blame it all on Andy Dick or Dick Cheney but I knew the blame lay squarely on my own shoulders. By mid-afternoon I had a script all worked out in my head. I wasn’t going to be an asshole and text him, I at least owed him a personal visit. But after our (people named) dick vs. pussy (cat) text war I was back down a few pegs, fighting to get back up to _NO, GRACE. THIS WILL NOT WORK._

Why did he have to be so…him? He knew what he did to people, I was sure of it. Was that what this was for him? I had given him some resistance (okay, not much). I hadn’t fawned over him (right away) when we met, so was this about him trying to win over someone who wasn’t immediately in awe of his status? Or did he find it refreshing? One of those had to be true. Maybe both. Maybe I was way off. I had no idea.

I climbed the stairs and knocked on his door. The hallway was narrow and had only three doors. The penthouse door, the stairwell door, and the elevator. I was only ever going to use two of those, thank you very much. And only one if he wasn’t here.

But he was.

The door swung open.

“Grace!” He pulled me up into the room and into a giant hug.

“Take it easy!” I laughed.

“But I missed you,” he said into my cheek. I said nothing, because if I did it would be something I would never be able to take back, good or bad.

I looked around. “No wonder you wanted to come up here. It’s amazing. My room is probably smaller than your bathroom.”

“Ha. Probably not,” he grinned. “I have a surprise for you.”

“Really? What is it? I hate surprises!”

“How can you hate surprises?”

I shrugged. “So what is it?”

“You’ll see. Patience is a virtue. Someone told me that once.”

“Oh really. Well, they were probably very smart and right. Do you have anything to drink? Next time I’m bringing my own booze.”

He set me down and went to the bar. “I have whisky and wine.”

“Oh, wine please. What kind?”

“I don’t know, some kind of red that was already here. A…” he looked at the label, “…cabernet. Is that okay?”

“Yeah, why not. I’m not that picky about wine.”

He poured some into a glass and handed it to me.

We had our first awkward silence since the elevator.

“Come with me,” he said after a minute, taking my hand. “I want to show you the surprise.”

“Oh goody,” I said half-heartedly. I was not excited about the conversation I needed to have with him.

“Don’t be like that. I want you to like it.”

“I’m sure I will, dude.”

“Okay, _dude_ ,” he said back, rolling his eyes.

“At least I didn’t call you ‘Mr. Hutcherson,’” I said under my breath.

We rounded the corner into the bedroom, and I gasped, despite myself. I was not used to this kind of…anything. The room was set up like a fucking spa, complete with massage table, candles, incense and some kind of soft music.

“I read up on tantric massage this afternoon between emails.”

“Oh…oh my god. This is…this is definitely a surprise,” I said. “This is…wow.” I’d used some tantric techniques before but I’d never taken the atmospheric element quite this far. Maybe a candle or two, an extra sheet on the bed to soak up the oil.

“Do you like it?”

“Yeah, yeah I really do. This looks interesting, to say the least.”

He was very eager.

“Let’s get started,” he said as he handed me a towel.

“You want me to…”

“Get undressed and put on the towel. I’ll go get the bottle of wine.”

“Um, okay.”

He left the room and I sighed and slumped onto the bed. What the hell was I going to do? I’d come here to break things off and he had greeted me with a bear hug and now he was getting me naked. He was not making things easy.

He came back into the room and I took a deep breath and said, “I have to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“Well, to start you have me getting naked in your bedroom in under ten minutes when I came up here to tell you I didn’t think we should see each other anymore.”

“What? Why?” his face fell unexpectedly. I had no idea why it would even bother him. I didn’t know why it bothered me either.

“Come sit down.” I patted the bed next to me. “I don’t know. I just…fuck. I had a whole speech. I like you. That’s it. I like you and I shouldn’t like you as much as I do.”

“There’s nothing wrong with liking people.”

“I know. But I’m scared.”

“Don’t be scared of me. I’m not scary.” He put a hand on my thigh and I tensed up.

“You scare the fuck out of me.”

“Why?” He was actually offended. Shit, shit, shit.

“Because I can’t tell if you’re just playing me, or if I’m some kind of challenge. I’m always suspicious of people who like me.”

“I’m not, you’re not and there’s no reason to be.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“No, I wouldn’t. I have fans who get carried away. Who take things too far. Who invest too much into the idea of who they think I am. That’s why I have security. But it doesn’t make me afraid of all the rest of my fans, all the rest of humanity.”

My words rode the emotional wave I felt straight from my heart out my mouth, skipping my brain completely. “But you’ve never been kidnapped. You’ve never been locked in a car trunk for twelve hours.”

“No. Fuck, no. Did that happen to you? Is that why you’re claustrophobic?”

“Yeah. It happened to me. My first year of college. I worked at a coffee shop, and one of the customers got…attached to me.”

“Fuck. Grace. I’m sorry.”

“No. I’m sorry. Shit. I don’t tell people this. I’m not a victim, Josh. I finished college. I got a job. I didn’t let it stop me from doing what I have to do. I just have to protect myself. I can’t afford security. I run background checks on all my lovers. I plan every encounter I have so fucking carefully. You…you’ve turned everything upside down. I don’t know which way is up or down or sideways. I don’t know anything… I…” I forced my breathe to slow down. I forced my body to calm down. “I trust you, against every single rule I have. There’s no reason for it. But I do.” I was fighting tears so hard I felt like I was trying to swallow an elephant. My head hurt.

“Grace. Look at me. If you need to stop, if you need to not see me ever again, we can do that. I won’t like it but I can do it. I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not going to do anything you don’t want me to, okay? God. I’m so sorry.” He pulled my stiffened body to him by my shoulders, attempting to comfort me.

“I told you I had reasons.”

“Is he in jail? I mean, was he prosecuted?”

“He was in jail, but he was killed in a prison fight a few years ago.” I inhaled. “I haven’t had a real serious relationship for awhile. No one has even tried for the longest time. I’ve had roommates, friends with benefits, I’ve been in love with people I’ve never told.”

“That sounds really lonely.”

“It is. I’m sorry. I should go now.” I started to get up, to gather my things.

He caught my arm. “No, why would you have to go?”

“Because. This is too much… _I’m_ too much for anyone to take on. You shouldn’t have to deal with any of this.”

“Grace. Everyone has something they’re dealing with. You just have something big and real that just… Fuck, you were stuck in the elevator yesterday… it’s no wonder things are coming up. And now I’m…shit.”

“You’re what? Helping me? Being kind? Trying to get laid?” I smiled, hoping to ease the blow of my word choice.

“Well, yeah, I guess all of those. But ‘trying to get laid’ sounds so harsh.”

“Sorry. I know. You haven’t met me at my best. I feel like such a mess. I spent the whole afternoon wondering why. Why me? Surely there are younger, easier girls out there.”

“Maybe I don’t want easier. Maybe I’m tired of vapid party girls who just want to be seen with me or to be able to say they fucked me. I want to spend this time with you. Don’t make me say it again, okay? Don’t question it. Just go with it. Let’s just do this and go where it takes us. I don’t want you to hold back anymore. No more doubts. None of that shit. We’re wasting time.”

“Okay,” I said. It was all I could say. I wanted to say thank you, to tell him he was a fucking saint. But that would take it all back to awkward, and I didn’t want that. “We’ll go where it takes us,” I said finally.

“Good.” His tone said it was settled. He climbed up on the bed behind me and I felt his hands on my shoulders. “I was reading this afternoon. About erotic massage. Obviously we can’t do it all or get too deep into it but I think I can work out some of the massage techniques.”

He rubbed my shoulders for awhile, and gradually the tension started to seep out of me and he climbed down.

“Okay. Get naked and get the fuck up here.” He slapped the table and winced. “Ow, that kind of hurt.” He pulled a blanket from the floor and covered the table.

I laughed. “And you want me to let you give me a massage?”

“I’m totally legit. I have references.”

“No thanks, I don’t really want to talk to any of your exes today.”

“Not just my exes. Some of them I wasn’t even dating.”

“Dating like street corner ‘dating’”?

He gave me a look. “Shit. I don’t have to pay for that. I’m pretty.”

“Yes you are,” I laughed. I dropped the subject and my clothes quickly and slid onto the table. “You want me facing up or down?”

“Down.” He raised an eyebrow and gave me his stripper face from the elevator.

I lay down and tried to relax. He made it easy, though. His hands were soft and the oil he was using smelled like jasmine and honeysuckle and cucumbers, all some of my favorites. “How did you know what smells I liked?” I asked sleepily.

“I’m a good guesser,” he said as his hand slid up the inside of my thigh.

“You’re good at a couple of things I can think of,” I said as his fingers explored the crease at the curve of my ass. He slid a finger down into the cleft between my legs.

“I’m gonna stop talking now,” I said as he dragged the fingernails of his other hand down my back and I struggled to maintain breathing as usual as a cascade of fireworks lit me up.

He didn’t reply with words, he just worked the oil over my body, experimenting with different touches, different pressures and places, from light to firm, from toes to neck. He spent a lot of time between my waist and legs, but that wasn’t surprising.

“Okay, turn over,” he said. He took my hand and helped me shift my weight and flip. “This is the fun part,” he said as he placed a kiss on my forehead, then each of my temples, then he grazed my lips with his.

I smiled. “Tease.”

“That’s the idea,” he said, applying more oil to his hands. “How are you feeling? Good?” His voice was low and I could see the evidence of his arousal through the shorts he was wearing.

“Yes, very good.”

“Close your eyes, I’m going to tell you everything I’m doing, okay?”

“Okay.” My breath caught as I closed my eyes. But it wasn’t fear I was feeling anymore.

“I’m going to put my hand between your breasts,” he said. I felt the pressure of his palm on my sternum. “You’re going to feel my other hand on your ribs now.” And I did. He continued to describe every action, every movement as he brought his hands together to cup my breast, as he ran my nipples between his fingers, as he stroked my skin, as he slid over muscle and bone in long, slow, smooth swipes.

By the time he reached between my thighs and said “I’m going to touch your pussy now, Grace,” I was completely unwound, my entire body was vibrating and fizzing and snapping with warm, slow fire.

“Open your legs,” he said as he slowly stroked the exterior of my sex from the underneath up. He said the words as I felt his fingers separate my lips while he continued to smooth the skin on either side. He let me know with each movement as his touch got closer to the center, closer and closer to the spots where his contact would have the most effect. “You can tell me to stop or go faster or slower or lighter or harder if you need to,” he said softly. He swept his fingers up and down my labia until I was nearly liquified from the inside out.

“I’m putting one finger inside you.” I felt the push and the pressure as he moved in me. I couldn’t tell exactly what he was doing, but it was like he’d pushed a levitation button. My back arched and my legs spread and lifted and I held on to the side of the table to keep from flying away.

His voice was dusky and rough as he informed me of his thumb on my clit and I wanted nothing more than to grab him and pull him down onto and into me but what he was doing was so unbearably sweet. He held me still with the palm of his top hand while he worked his thumb and the finger of his other hand together. He built the slow fire and tended it but it never threatened to overwhelm me. He wasn’t pushing me to an end, to burn out, he was just building the fire for the fire’s sake. 

My eyes fluttered open just in time to catch him inhaling the scent of me on his fingers. “Is it my turn now?” I asked.

“Yep,” he said softly, a hint of something (nervousness? shyness? I couldn’t tell) touching the corners of his eyes and mouth as he gave me a small smile. I sat up and he handed me a robe. I pulled it around my shoulders while he took off his shorts and underwear. I pulled him to me so I could assist with his shirt. As it came up over his head he sighed.

“It’s going to be uncomfortable to lay on that, isn’t it?” I nodded southward.

“A little,” he said as I climbed down.

“Here, lay on your side.” He climbed up on the table and I started the slow and careful investigation of his body.

I used my voice to keep him aware of the path my hands were taking, and there was something so soothingly arousing about naming all the parts as I mapped them. I touched them superficially at first, then drew out the idiosyncrasies that were not obvious from just a look or a glancing touch. I learned where he was ticklish, where his scars and marks were, what kind of touch he liked and what made him squirm.

His skin was soft but taut over his dense musculature. I explored the hollows and prominences of his side; I spent a lot of time on the dip and curve of his gluteus maximus. I traced the muscles of his legs, which were elastic and springy when they were relaxed and unyielding masses when they flexed.

I rolled him over onto his back and then onto his other side. I didn’t know even close to everything about tantra but I knew it was important to pay equal attention to each side. I rolled him onto his back and splayed my fingers over his stomach, moving over the center of his body. I was particularly fascinated by the curve just under his belly button and its fine line of hair. I made a mental note to revisit that spot later with my mouth. It looked like a good spot to sink some teeth into. Gently, of course. I felt the same way about several parts of his body. Too many to name.

I treaded lightly with his cock, it didn’t need any help with its arousal. I tried some calming strokes, but it became quickly clear by his breathing that I wasn’t having the desired effect. At least not _my_ desired effect.

When I was done I touched my lips to his cheek and he stirred.

“Can we cuddle tonight?” he asked, his voice heavy and fluid.

“Yes. I think you’ve earned your cuddle tonight. But not naked.”

He sighed, resigned. “Okay. But tomorrow night…”

“Tomorrow night we’ll revisit the issue,” I said.

I wiped the excess oil from my limbs with the towel he gave me and he did the same. I had no idea how long we’d been lost in our world of touch, but I suspected it had been quite awhile. I was really tired and his eyes were drooping.

“Do you have a shirt I can sleep in?” I asked, brushing my hair out with my fingers. “I didn’t bring anything.”

“Yeah, for sure.” He lent me a white v-neck t-shirt that was just a little bit sheer. I pulled my underwear back on, braided my hair and climbed into the bed. His sheets were definitely higher thread count than mine.

He got into bed and pulled me up against him by the back of my waist. “You smell so good,” he sighed deeply.

“I should, you picked out the flavor.”

He touched his forehead to mine. His eyes were slowly smoldering embers wrapped with dark and flashing emeralds. “Can I kiss you now?” he whispered.

“If you want,” I said.

He did. He took his time, and his mouth was just as thorough as his hands had been. When he was satisfied I turned over and he pulled my back up against his chest. “Goodnight Grace,” he whispered.

“Goodnight,” I whispered back. He combed his fingers through my hair, and unlike all the other fidgeting he did, this was soothing and sweet and lulled me quickly into drowsiness. He never let go of me either, and every time I started to drift away he’d pull me back.

“You promised,” he said one time, much more than half asleep. I had actually done no such thing, but I was too tired and content to argue.

I had no dreams that night. Not even one.

 


	13. [good morning wood, america]

Wednesday morning

I woke up to a relentless sound and an insistent sensation. Something loud that was cracking my head open like a knife twisting in a watermelon; and something hard moving slowly against my back. I ignored the sound as I craned my neck around to look at his face and he seemed to still be asleep. His eyes were moving under his eyelids. He was dreaming.

I stifled a laugh but I also felt my body responding to his arousal. I didn’t want him to wake up to a mess and the embarrassment so when I felt the telltale twitch and swell I pulled away and he sighed. He mumbled something that may have been my name and his hands searched me out, but I pulled out of his reach.

I watched his eyelashes tremble in his sleep a few more seconds before I shook him. 

“Dude. Josh. Your alarm is going off.”

He stirred. “My what?”

“Your alarm. Your phone. It sounds like we’re on a sinking submarine. Should I get it?” 

“No, I got it.” He rolled over and turned it off. “Fuck, I hate waking up. Come here.”

“We definitely have that in common,” I said, settling back into his grasp. I felt his erection against me again and I snuggled my hips into it. 

He flexed against me. “I’ve had a fucking hard on all night long. It won’t go away.” 

“That must be…difficult.” I ventured. 

“It is all your fault,” he said as he rubbed his eyes. His hair was a complete mess. A precious, sexy mess. “I was having this dream…” 

“I know. You were kind of acting it out.”

“I was? Shit. What did I do?”

“Just a little grinding. And talking,” I teased. 

“I didn’t say anything incriminating did I?”

“Something about a safe code and diamonds and where you hid the bodies. That’s all.” 

“Well, as long as that’s it. Nothing about JFK or my swiss bank account number?”

“Not a word.”

 ++

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

He was showered and dressed and frustrated. In more ways than one. He gestured to his crotch, which was indeed a problem if he wanted to go out in public. And he did. He had the morning show appearance in less than two hours. 

“You could strap it down,” I said helpfully as I ate the last of my breakfast toast. “Ace bandage? Duct tape?”

“I can’t…oh my god, Grace.”

“Cold shower?”

“You know I tried that.” 

“You really want to get rid of it?” 

“Um, yeah. Think of the fangirls. How many heart related deaths do you want to be responsible for today?” 

“Oh come on. It can’t be that bad. And are you really thinking about the fangirls? Maybe that’s the problem. Stop thinking about all those nubile, willing fangirls.”

He glared at me. “It  _can_  be that bad. I don’t even look at the stuff that goes up online. Amanda—my aunt, I’ll tell you about her later—tells me it’s hilarious. She keeps track of that shit. But it’s  _my_  fucking dick. I can’t go on live television with…this. Parents will riot and boycott.” 

“I like your fucking dick. Everyone should. It’s awesome.”

“Seriously. I’m just going to go in the bathroom and…”

I took a giant swig of my water and slipped down from the barstool I was perched on and walked over to him. I looked him in the eyes as I unbuttoned his pants, as I pulled them down around his knees. I knelt slowly, nuzzling my way down his front with my mouth, nipping on that spot below his belly button I’d wanted to bite last night. I peeked inside his boxers. 

“Oh my god.” He threw his head back. “If you’re teasing me I’m going to die.”

“I’m not teasing you,” I cooed. “Watch me.” 

“Oh my goooddd.” His eyes were dark as storm clouds and he gasped as I sprung him from his elastic prison. He was nearly delirious with frustration, and I really didn’t want to cause any problems for him. Besides, I had wanted to do this for days now. I had wanted to take it slower, but his need was pressing. I licked my lips and his pupils expanded, his want overwhelming everything, even pushing the color out of his eyes. I pulled his hips to me. 

I slipped the tight, darkening skin of his head into my mouth, drawing him in with my tongue and the slightest amount of suction. He shuddered. He was so hard. I swirled my tongue around the circumference of the ridge and pulled him in as far as he would go, sliding my lips back off and then on again, running my tongue along the length, wrapping my hands around his hipbones to keep him steady. He expanded impossibly, his veins throbbing against my tongue and he gasped, he was getting to the edge quickly. 

I pushed my tongue out and along the underside and pulled him in again. His fingers ghosted over my cheeks and tangled in my hair. He didn’t push but he hinted at his preferred rhythm with the tension of his grasp. He broke eye contact and dropped his head back, dipping his hips under, begging for completion. A few more thrusts and he was nearly unraveled. I pulled my mouth off almost completely and plunged him all the way to the back of my throat and I felt him let go. He shuddered a few more times and released my hair and I released him from my lips. 

It was quick but it was what I had promised. 

He stumbled back onto the leather sofa and collapsed, still hard. 

“Damn,” he panted. I sat down next to him and slipped on my shoes. “But look at it! It’s never going to go away!” He pushed down on it to demonstrate as it sprang back up in his lap. 

“It will go away. Give it a few minutes,” I tried to be reassuring. “Think unsexy thoughts.” 

“Yes, thank you. Not that easy. You’re here.” 

“I’ll go, will that help? Your ‘people’ will be here soon anyway, right? Don’t want to be seen. You go take another cold shower, and you come see me when you’re done with everything. Okay?” 

“Okay,” he frowned. He looked petulant, like a little boy. “I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate what you just did. That was fucking epic. I just have bigger things I have to worry about too.” 

“Not much bigger,” I smirked and he glared at me. “Who’s bad at accepting compliments now? I know, dude. Don’t worry.” I helped him pull up his underwear around his still stiff cock and pulled up his pants over his knees to his thighs. There was still quite a considerable mass sticking out of his waistband like a thick spear. I bit my lip. If he was just going to get back in the shower it didn’t matter. It would have been a logistical chore anyway to tuck that thing back in. I kissed him lightly on the top of both his heads. 

“I hate it when you call me dude.” 

“Really? I’m sorry _dude_.” 

“Get out of here!” he swatted me on the ass and I yelped. 

“Whatever. I’ll see you later, dude. Text me. What are we doing again?”

“I told you, it’s a surprise. Be ready to go!”

“I would be if I knew where! And I still mostly hate surprises!” I grabbed my bag from the counter and blew him a kiss on the way out. “Check into a hospital if you have an erection lasting longer than four hours! It could be a sign of a serious condition. Or youth.” 

“Thanks,” he groaned. 

“And don’t touch it! That will only make it worse.”

I glanced at him as I was closing the door and he was still on the sofa, rubbing at his crotch and looking at me like I was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. 

I felt a little bit guilty. But only a little. 

++

Back in my room I got into the shower, washing the rest of the jasmine and honeysuckle from last night down the drain. I wondered how the erectile non-dysfunction problem was working out upstairs. It wasn’t _all_ my fault. I’m sure he had these issues all the time from what I’d seen of his seemingly constant state of arousal. 

I checked my phone for messages, but there were none. It had now been two days since my interview and I was starting to get worried. I plopped down into the bed and pulled out my laptop. Looking for another job was not something that I enjoyed. I clicked through the listings and one jumped out at me. It might work. I’d have to check it out. 

I flipped on the TV for the first time since I’d been here. The morning shows were always so chipper. I remembered why I didn’t get up early. Ever, unless I was working. I worked on my resume some when I heard the name. His name. Coming up in the next segment, the blonde TV head said. I waited out the commercial break in a weird kind of stasis. Suddenly on the screen there he was, the same person who had been laid out naked for me last night, the same person who wouldn’t let go of me all night, in front of a throng of screaming girls. It was May, but he had on a scarf that conveniently covered his front all the way down to mid-thigh. That was one solution, I guess. I wondered if he’d come up with it himself or if he’d had to confess to his publicist about his issue. I didn’t know if he still actually had an erection or if he was just worried it might come back at any moment. 

It was terrible, but I laughed a little at the image of him having to explain what was going on in his pants to someone whose job it was to handle it, so to speak. All of those fans. The ones he didn’t want to disappoint, the ones that would have simultaneous heart attacks if they caught sight of his erect penis. It wasn’t just that he didn’t want to shock or disappoint. He needed to keep this one thing his alone. It was private, that was why they were called private parts. It must be mortifying to be male sometimes. 

Just thinking about his private parts was making me a little wet, and I wondered if he knew I was watching. I doubted it. He probably thought I was asleep again. He waved and smiled to the cameras, flashes popping, the sound of the crowd high in the ovary bearing contingent. I waved back at the public Josh on the screen and touched my lips, the sense memory of his lips and his cock still fresh. Mine. It had been mine for those few minutes. It was his always but I had owned it, and I got to keep the memory. 

He was set up for the interview in front of the girls, some of whom were obviously moved to tears by his presence, some whom were jumping up and down, unable to contain themselves. There were a few waving signs that proposed plural marriage, threesomes and their undying affections. 

He was utterly charming. He had the interviewer scooting in closer to touch him on the leg. He was magnetic, even when he didn’t want to be. It was his nature. I could see his compensations in his body’s reactions. He pulled his torso back, his hand tucked protectively between his thighs, his feet curled inward.

It was surreal. I had been in those very pants, less than a few hours ago. The old fear creeped back in a little, telling me that this would not end well. But I ignored it. Hard. 

When he was done plugging the new movie I flipped off the TV. I had to get on this job before whatever he had planned this afternoon. I called the number listed and set up an interview. They could meet with me in an hour. Would it work out? No idea. But I had to try. 

That attitude was becoming my motto for this week. And I was not willing yet to admit to myself who I had to thank for the influence. 


	14. [fast or hard]

**TEXT FROM JOSH**

**_Me: So what are we doing?_ **

**_Josh: still a surprise. fast or hard?_ **

**_Me: What?_ **

**_Josh: FAST or HARD?_ **

**_Me: Uhhh, fast?_ **

**_Josh: got it. a box should be there for you soon. wear what's inside._ **

**_Me: Should I be scared?_ **

**_Josh: probably_ **

 

Wednesday afternoon

 

The boxes arrived shortly after he texted me. Two of them. They were not small.  A large square box and a flatter, rectangular one. I opened the big one first.  
  
It was a helmet. A motorcycle helmet to be precise, in a shiny turquoise complete with retro looking goggles. There was a note.

  
  
_I didn't think you looked like a 'pink' person. -J_

  
  
The flat package contained a pair of light but sturdy boots and a black waxed cotton jacket. Tucked into a corner was a pair of sunglasses. Actor, producer, personal shopper. His talents were never ending, it seemed. 

_I had to guess your sizes. Call the number below if something doesn't fit and they'll come to the hotel to exchange it. -J_

But it wasn’t a problem. Everything fit like second skin.  
  
I put on the helmet and looked in the mirror. I had no idea who that woman was, but she needed some lipstick. I put on the reddest shade I had with me, threw on some jeans and a black t-shirt and waited.  
  
I didn’t have to wait too long.  
 **  
**

**Josh: come down @the back at the door next to the stairwell exit. wear sunglasses it's bright out**

**Me: Be right there.**

I knew what was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, but I still was not prepared to see him, sitting there, face still made up for TV, dressed like James Dean and packing enough sex in his general visage to last me for a thousand weeks. It was the most fucking beautiful sight I’d seen in a long time and we were just getting started. 

I needed absolutely no coaxing to climb onto the back of that bike. 

He looked back at me with those eyes and asked “Are you ready?” I nodded, and we were off. 

He took us out of the city and onto a road that ran parallel to the river. The day was bright and clear and everything smelled like ozone and chlorophyll and sunshine. Like laundry wished it smelled. He was warm and solid and so, so steady. I wrapped my arms around his waist and held on, my chin resting on his shoulder. My heart lifted completely up and out of my ribcage and tried to grow wings big enough to escape. It was perfect, and he was perfect, and the world was perfect. Of course nothing is actually perfect, but this was as close as I had ever come to it in my life.  

We drove for an hour or so and he pulled off the main road onto a series of smaller and smaller roads until we came to a gate, which he opened with a key. 

“What are we doing?” I asked, warming my cheeks with my hands. 

“You’ll see,” was all he said, with a grin that could only be described as capable of shit eating. 

I did see. We pulled into a small copse of trees next to a wide grassy field. At the edge of the trees was a sofa, a small table, a picnic basket and…a bed. The mattress was very low to the ground and was piled high with pillows and bedding so fluffy I was afraid it might turn into a cloud and float away. 

“Well, what do you think?” he asked me. 

“Oh, my god. When did you do all of this? Where are we? Whose property is this? Can I jump on that fucking bed?” 

“Yesterday, I know people, and only if I can too.”

I didn’t even give him a chance to take off his helmet, I was already off at a dead run making a beeline for that mattress. I launched myself into the air and hit the cloud at full speed. It poofed and fluffed up around me, and a second later I felt an impact right next to me and a helmeted face popped up, peeking and grinning at me over the billows.  

I may have screamed with delight. 

“This is amazing!” I popped my helmet off and shook out my hair. “You are amazing.” I gathered an armful of blankets and buried myself. “How did you think of it?” my muffled voice wanted to know. 

“I have a couple of bikes,” he shrugged. “One of them is kind of the racing version of that one,” he grinned, pointing at the bike we’d abandoned for our cloud.  “And I love camping. What do you think?” 

“I think that this is the exact opposite of being stuck in an elevator. That’s what I think of it. I want to kiss you so hard right now.” 

“That can be arranged,” he said as he rolled through the down and came to rest almost on top of me. He shifted until he actually was on top of me, pulled his helmet off and found my mouth. His lips were dextrous and clever and I whimpered while I wrapped my legs around his hips. He turned his attention to my neck, the scruff on his face pricking and tickling as he kissed every inch from my ear to my shoulder. By the time he hit my collarbone I was gasping for air and begging him not to stop.  

“Are you hungry?” he changed the subject suddenly, rolling off of the bed and standing up in one fluid motion. Only the significant bulge in his pants and the red in his cheeks gave him away. He ran a hand through his sweaty helmet hair and shed his jacket. 

He checked his phone and held out his hand for mine. 

“No phones,” he said.  

I handed it over without a second thought. “Easy for me, but will you be okay? We could do a quick serenity prayer.” 

“I’ll manage.” He poked at me. He set them both to vibrate and tucked them into the saddle bag on the bike. “I may get up in the middle of the night if I go into withdrawal. Fair warning.” 

I held up my hands. “I’m not making the rules today. Seriously, how did you do this?” I was genuinely curious. 

“I told you, I know people,” he shrugged. I’m sure it didn’t hurt to have any of the resources he had at his disposal. I didn’t ask any more questions. Gift horse, mouth, etc. 

Inside the basket was a pretty decent selection of cheese, breads, fruit and cured meats. And a couple of bottles of wine. We sampled almost everything, but especially the wine. We leaned back and sank into the sofa with at least one appetite sated and a pretty decent buzz going. 

“So you like this?” he asked, his hands tucked under his head, the fluffy sofa holding him up like some kind of throwback greaser angel. 

“Are you kidding me?” I asked, incredulous. “This is perfect. I don’t know how you normally do things to impress the ladies but you probably don’t need to change up your repertoire anytime soon.” 

“I don’t see any other ladies. Just you.” He moved in close, cupping my face in his hands. His thumbs grazed the hollows of my cheeks, his fingers flexed as he parted my hair and curled to gain gentle traction. Then he kissed me so soft and so slow that I thought I was going to die right there. All I knew was I wanted more of this death by Hutcherson. My fingers fumbled with the hem of his shirt, I slipped a hand up under and around his waist, drawing him down to me. His skin was a silky furnace and my hands soaked it up; greedy in the cool of the late spring afternoon. 

We made out like teenagers, so close we couldn’t get any closer without being naked. He was already to second base, his hand trapped between my skin and my bra. I hadn’t done anything like this in so long I couldn’t even remember when the last time was, and I didn’t want to think about it.

He pulled back, breathless. “Is this all okay?”

“Shut up and kiss me,” I said. 

We hit third base a little while later, our pants undone, our hands buried deep in one another’s business. He felt so good in my hand and me in his that I didn’t notice the sun was starting to set. We separated when a home run or a forfeit were our only options. I was voting for home run.

“I want to see you,” he said, pulling his hand from my jeans. ”Lets get into bed,” He got up and looked for something in one of the trees behind the sofa. He made a triumphant noise and tiny lights bloomed on in the lower branches of the tree, lighting up everything with a soft hazy glow. He shot me a grin and did what I can only hope was a victory dance back to the bed. I was unfamiliar with the mating habits of the young and famous. “Much better,” he said as he returned to me, dropping his boots at the edge of the bed. 

I lay back on the bed and let him undress me. He unlaced my boots carefully and set them down neatly in the grass next to his. He took his time as he unbuttoned and unzipped my jeans, biting his lip as he pulled them off, revealing me slowly. He stopped to look at me in the sunset light, mesmerized by something I couldn’t see in myself.  

He shook his head like he was clearing an Etch-A-Sketch. “Where were we?” He settled at my feet, my knees up. 

“Paradise,” I said. “Heaven. Nirvana. One of those.” 

“Oh yeah,” he held out his hand. “Get up on your knees.”

“Bossy!” I said, but I obliged. He pulled off my jacket, leaning in close enough to kiss my neck as he slipped off the sleeves behind my back, bringing me right back to where we’d been earlier. The heat of his lips scorched and marked me and I shivered involuntarily and pressed my hips into his. Returning his attention forward he skirted the hem of my t-shirt, rubbing the back of his hand along my stomach, my skin melting with the soft friction. It was delicate torture. I wanted to rip my shirt off myself, but I let him do it. Slowly, as was our unspoken agreement. When I was down to my flimsy cotton underwear he started to take off his clothes, just as slowly as he’d removed mine. The pants were a little awkward and I may have giggled and offered to help at one point, but he frowned at me and handled it fairly well considering that he was on his knees. 

Finally we were down to the foundational barriers. He reached around my back and released my bra with one hand. 

“Smooth,” I laughed. 

“I have some skill,” he said. 

“Me too,” I shrugged off the bra and let his eyes wander over them for a minute, my fingertips playing under the elastic of his underwear. 

The right corner of his mouth tugged up and did that thing, the thing that made my heart jump a little, especially up this close. STOP. It’s just oxytocin, I told myself. It’s just bonding hormones. But that fact didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy this.

Suddenly, as if he’d been just as eager to get on with it as I had, he reached around my back and planted his hand firmly at the small of my back. His other hand moved so quickly to my hair I didn’t even see it, just felt it. His mouth found my mouth, impatient and hungry, pushing me backward with his lip’s ferocity, his hands countering to pull me back to him, our bare skin finally making full contact. 

My whole body lit up like a thousand of those lights in the tree and I lost my breath for the thousandth time that week. We groped at each other, pulling and pushing and dancing there on our knees under all of space, tethered to the planet. We were falling through space into each other, locked and held together by the same invisible force that bound us to the earth. 

I ached to be closer. We ripped away the last scraps of clothing and he swung his legs around and I straddled his lap, high on my knees, stretching the moment. I could feel him, poised and panting with anticipation.

“You’re so goddamn wet,” he whispered, and I felt his need focus and zero in on its target.  

I sank down onto him and his chest rumbled with a sound I had not heard him make before. He buried his face in my chest, murmuring the sweetest and dirtiest words I’d ever heard and I felt him inside of me, impossibly hard. He looked at me, his eyes wide. I pushed down against him and he wrapped his sturdy arms around me and lifted, only to let me fall back down on him again and again. We found a rhythm that suited both of us, and he pulled my face down to his and his lips were always the same but he seemed to have an endless supply of new tricks. The fire roared up inside me, my black hole remembering what it was like to be a star. To be filled and liquified from the inside out, to own the heat and the fusion down to its smallest particle. I remembered.  

“Fuck,” He groaned through his teeth. A string of words flew out of his mouth. “I’m so close…I’m going to come…can I?” He looked up at me, his eyes holding back the ocean in mine, and the question broke something inside me. A dam I’d built a very long time ago when I’d known nothing but selfish men who never asked, never told, only did and didn’t care. I didn’t even know there was any other kind, until that moment.

“Yes,” I whispered into his hair, cradling his face against my chest as he picked me up and impaled me over and over. I was on the verge of tears. “Come,” I said, and I felt like he was going to split me in two with his need. He shuddered and growled and I felt him swell and spill inside of me. He lifted and pressed me down a few last times and then he nestled into me, a flurry of kisses and squeezes and words that I can’t even repeat. 

My body suddenly felt different. Alive. Purring and humming with some kind of energy I’d never felt before. I held onto it, onto him. 

“Do you want to see if you can come? I don’t know how this works for you, exactly,” he said, after his breathing evened out and a few more languid kisses. 

“I, um. I don’t know if I can yet.” I wanted to cry with the ache of the moment, with his lips on my heart, planting kisses that would bloom and live for only a few short, sweet seconds.

I stared up at the Milky Way, taking in the billions of years of light that was just reaching us on this backward ass minuscule planet. Looking at the sky was literally like looking into a time machine. Focus, Grace. He’s trying to keep you here and you’re off somewhere in your head about fucking starlight. ”But if you want to try…”

“I want to.” There was no doubt, no ego in his voice at all. This was not about me being a mountain to climb, he wanted to give this to me. Not to prove that he could, it was just a gift. He wanted to fill my need. I felt another break, like a sledgehammer this time. Another wall reduced to nothing, releasing a landslide after the flood. I wanted to make him understand what he was doing to me, I wanted to tell him how he made me feel, but it was too much. Too much feeling and I was too bare and too broken down. So I let him try. 

His hands traveled my body, he listened to every sound I made, every sigh, every whisper, every curse, every time I couldn’t help but say his name.  I was drowning and burning and falling and needing… his fingers moved deliberately, in circles and in lines, digging and unearthing things I didn’t know were even there. He hadn’t exaggerated his skill level. 

He was adding yet another dimension of things I wasn’t used to, from his willingness to please after his own satisfaction to his expertise at drawing out every tiny sensation to the fact that he didn’t mind going there.

He brought me to the edge several times but it never happened. Despite every single wish I had, despite every cell of my body that screamed to be unleashed.

I wasn’t disappointed. It was too early and I was fully content to bask in his satisfaction, for now. Everything that was happening was too lovely to not enjoy. 

We lay there picking out stars from our cloud, drinking the rest of the wine until our eyes were heavy and our bodies were tired from the next I don’t even know how many times we crashed back together that night and I swam in the surf of his release.

 

 


	15. [ r o l l i n g ]

I woke up hungover, disoriented and wrapped in  cumulus down under the pale dawn sky, needing to pee and really wishing I hadn’t let Josh rip off my underwear. 

“Hey,” said the voice I’d known for a mere three mornings now from beside me.

“Hey,” I said. “How are you?” 

“I’m good.” His fingers extended and traced the lines of my jaw, ending at my chin. His eyes and thumb gently explored my bottom lip, then the top, as if he were trying to memorize them. I kissed the tip of his finger softly and wrapped one of the stray curls at his temple around my finger. 

“Josh,” I said.

“Hmmm?” He smiled sleepily.

“I really need to pee.”

He laughed and kissed my forehead as he sat up. ”That’s very romantic.” 

“Wait, you aren’t one of those guys who pretends that girls don’t have bodily functions, are you?” I sat up and clutched the comforter to my chest. 

“Ha! No. Those guys end up disillusioned or with one of those women who sleep with their makeup on.” 

“Those women scare me,” I said. “They’re the real reason smudge proof lipstick was invented, you know. The fact that there’s a market for it scares me even more.” 

“Speaking of things you can get at the drugstore, I brought some extra clothes, a disposable toothbrush and a couple other things, if you need them. They’re in the bag behind the sofa.”   

“You have done this before, haven’t you?” 

“I’ve been camping before, yes.” He grinned. “Walk slow when you get up. I like the view.”

“No, I think I’ll just steal your blanket and leave you here with nothing but a pillow to cover your shame.”

“I have no shame, what are you talking about?” 

“Lets see.” I pulled the fluffy comforter off of him and he attempted to pull it back. 

“Hey, it’s cold!” 

“Excuses, excuses,” I laughed, and my mouth felt like it had been wallpapered overnight. “Is there any water?” 

“In the bag.”

“Bathroom?”

“Not in the bag. Who do you think I am, a wizard? Not my franchise. 

“No, just some ridiculously good looking actor with a knack for magical overnight picnics.” 

“Well that’s true. But sorry. No bathroom.”

“I think I’ll manage,” I said.  

When I came back he was staring at me, a grin plastered to his face.

“What is wrong with you? You look suspiciously gleeful.” There wasn’t really a better word for it. 

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” He propped his head up behind his hands on a pillow. 

“You look gorgeous.” I was wearing the sweatshirt and pair of short cut off jeans I had found in the bag, as well as the boots he’d given me yesterday, unlaced and flopping around my ankles. My hair was piled on top of my head and flying off in a million different directions, the static electricity in the bed had wrecked havoc on it. If he was testing me to see if I was getting any better at compliments, he was going to find out exactly how I felt about it.

“That’s your game, huh? Now you’re going to get it.” I dove into the blankets head first, aiming for the spot on his ribs I’d discovered the night before during our massages. 

“Ack!” he actually make that sound. _Ack_. “What did I do?” He curled up defensively, laughing so hard tears were running down his cheeks. “You look amazing.” He tried for retaliation on my ribs but I held up my arms and held still. 

“Little known fact about Sonja Grace Jones. I am not ticklish. At all. Except maybe one day a year if you can catch it. Today is not that day.”

“Wait a minute,” he captured my ribcage with his arms and pulled me down to straddle his lap. “Sonja? Grace is your middle name?”

“It is. Sonja, like Red Sonja. My dad was a huge 70’s and 80’s fantasy nerd. HUGE. Boris Vallejo? Arnold? He was all over that shit.” 

“Wow.”

“I started going by Grace after…well, during college.” 

“After the attack.”

“Yes.” My arms went limp. I felt very heavy all of a sudden. I rolled off to one side and he pulled me into his arms, stroking my hair as I settled my head onto his bare chest.

“I don’t want to talk about that,” I said.

“Okay. You don’t have to.” He squeezed me reassuringly.

The first light of the day bloomed over the eastern treeline, covering everything with waxy thin light.

He started to tap my shoulder rhythmically, which meant he was going to get restless soon. I had an idea. He was possibly going to think I was insane. “Have you ever had a dew shower?” I freed myself from his arms and started to strip. 

“No.”

I looked back at him and cracked a wicked grin.

“You’re not going to roll around in the grass.”

“Naked. Watch me.” 

“Oh, I will.”

“Come on. Come with me,” I challenged him. “You only live one time, Hutcherson.” 

He faked a frown but got out of bed, rubbing his arms dramatically. He slipped on his boots. “We’re going to get ticks and bugs and all kinds of shit.” 

“Not literal shit I hope,” I said as I tossed the shirt and shorts onto the bed. I left my boots on. I loped around the field awhile, looking for a good spot. I found one not too far away. The ground was soft but not soggy and the grass wasn’t too high. He jogged behind me half-heartedly and kept up, but he did not keep his eyes to himself.

“I like this view,” he said.

“Don’t get used to it,” I said.

“I could,” he said. And I couldn’t respond. 

I stopped and he tackled me around the waist, lifting me up off the ground as we tumbled over into the grass. 

“Is this how you do it?” he grinned.

“It? No. This is how you dew it!” He groaned at my pun as I spread my arms and legs out and did a grass angel, then I rolled into a fresh patch, stealing all the condensed droplets I could. The smell was invigorating. I breathed in deeply and looked over at Josh, but he was just watching me. 

“Come on, you have to roll around.” 

“Okay, okay.” He was completely lacking in self-consciousness once he committed to something and he quickly became a competitive expert at dew showering. When we rolled too far apart I called out and sat up and we rolled back together, flattening out more of my grass angel. It was difficult not to stare at him, shiny and soft and hard and literally as fresh as a spring morning. 

He held out his hand, an invitation. I rolled over next to him. He settled himself between my legs. He planted soft kisses on my face, then licked some of the dew from my cheek, then my neck, then worked his way down my chest and belly with his tongue and his lips. He was thorough. He started to go further, but my body only wanted one thing. Him, in me. I told him so and he groaned, the words and a few quick strokes seeming to be all he needed to become fully hard. He pushed inside me and our chlorophyl stained bodies rubbed and squeaked and we rolled around in the grass laughing and nipping at each other like puppies. 

I ended up on top of him, my hands on his chest for balance, my breasts squeezed between my arms. I laughed, and the sound disappeared into the trees. My hips ground into his, feeling him deep inside me, deeper than he had been before. 

His face was a jumble of reactions, he hissed through his teeth, his lips making a tiny square of his mouth. He sucked in a breath, he cried out and I could see all of his teeth. I slowed down, the swivel of my hips now deliberate and controlled. His hands grasped at me like I would dissolve and evaporate like the dew we were covered with. He thrust up at me from underneath, bucking and gasping like something wild. I would probably have bruises tomorrow. I didn’t even care. 

“Fuck! I’m going to come,” he warned me, his hands clamping into my thighs.

“Do it,” I said. I watched his face as he lost himself inside me. I watched his face, marveling at the range of expressions he was capable of. 

I waited until he was finished completely to laugh at my joke again. “Do it. Dew. It.”

“Staaaawp. That is the worst pun ever.” He attempted to tickle me and failed. 

I felt feral and free and I laughed at everything, for thinking I could never have or take anything like this for myself again. I climbed off of him and we lay there in the grass, watching the sun rise fully over the trees, naked except our unlaced boots. When the chill finally reached us as we cooled down, we walked back to our little camp, hand in hand. 

I wanted one last long naked kiss and fondle on the bed, then we dressed quietly, the reality of the day settling out in front of us. We needed to get back. I pulled on the jeans and jacket and helmet and we left our nest behind. The ride back was just as good as the ride out, but in a different way. We were tired and sore and silence cocooned around us as I wrapped myself around him, stealing his warmth in the cool morning. 

I didn’t think about what day it was, and that our week was half gone. We’d made significant progress toward my goal, I thought. Then I laughed at myself for thinking that way. It didn’t seem important right now. I let every thought I had go and surrendered to the ride and the moment. I imagined that the letters and images were swept out of my head and left in the dust behind us. Gone. At least for now. 

We reached the hotel and climbed the stairs silently to the top. He held my hand. After a night like that, even the three walls of wide open windows in the penthouse seemed strange and closed in. I missed the open sky. 

“Wanna take a bath?” 

“Yeah, I’m all itchy from the grass,” I said. “Wait, you have a bathtub?” 

“Yeah, with a view.” 

“Oh my god, yes.” 

The tub was deep and the water was perfect. 

“I should check you for ticks,” he said. 

“Now who’s being romantic?” 

He just chuckled as he slid his fingers along my scalp. 

“Oh, that feels so good,” I sighed. I closed my eyes and leaned my back against his chest. His fingers slowed and slipped to my shoulders. Time sort of slipped away, the way it’s difficult to judge how long you’ve been in limbo between asleep and awake sometimes. Time dilation. 

I felt rather than heard the small rumble in his chest when he started to snore. I slipped my hair under the water, rinsing the last of the bubbles away. 

“Shit! That tickles!” He jumped and sucked in a breath as my hair fanned out against his lower body. I tried to keep from laughing and failed. 

“Sorry,” I said, not sorry at all. I rolled over so I could get a good look at him. 

“You’re sleepy.”

“I know. And the water’s getting cold. Look,” he held up a hand, “my fingers are all pruny.” 

I wanted to ask him something. I paused, unsure, but I got it out. “I want to ask you something.”

“Sure, anything.” He was still just as fucking nice as the day we’d met. Three days ago. It seemed like months. Years. 

“Why…” I struggled. I pursed my lips and reformulated the question. “Why did you ask me…when you were about to come, why did you ask me if you could?”

“I don’t know, it’s just something I do. Doesn’t everyone? It seemed prudent.” He grinned at me, but his eyes were saying something different. “No one has ever asked you that before?”

“No. They just…they just did it. If they were trying to get me to come, they were very clear with their intent.” 

He pulled my head down to his chest, my cheek nestled in the hollow between his pectoral muscles. I leaned into him almost reluctantly and let my arms fall around his waist. He held me close and eventually I mirrored his actions, not quite able to admit that I needed to feel the thing he was giving me, and that I needed to return it.

“The last time I tried to do this…” The words stalled in my throat. I was speaking so softly I wasn’t even sure he could hear me, or if he was even awake. His breath and his pulse were soft and steady. “It was a guy I knew from work. We’d flirted for a few months and I had him checked out and he seemed fine. He was nice. He seemed sweet and secure. He invited me out for drinks one night and I told him about my issues, my routines. He said he was up for it. But the second time he came over he got on top of me, held me down and jerked off on my face and called me a cock tease and left.”

He didn’t say anything, but I felt his arms tighten around me and he released a sigh from the depths of his chest. 

“I didn’t do anything about it. I was humiliated. I felt like I’d asked for it. He got transferred to another department and I hardly ever saw him anymore. Maybe he felt guilty, I don’t know. I hope so. I talked to my therapist about it and worked it all out but I haven’t asked anyone to do this for a long time.”

I looked up at him, needing to gauge his reaction. He didn’t know what to say with words, it was written all over his face. 

“It’s okay, you don’t have to say anything,” I said. “And don’t you dare feel sorry for me.”

“That’s not it.” He found some words finally, clearing his throat. “I don’t feel sorry for you, I’m just sorry that happened to you. You know I’d never do that to you.”

“Yeah, I do. I don’t know why, but I’ve known that since I met you.”

“Good.”

Now the water really was getting cold, and we were uncomfortable enough to get out. 

We dried off and fell into bed. 

“Just a quick nap,” he said as we slipped under the sheets. But I was out before I remembered what I was going to…

 


	16. [ t b d ]

“Ugh. Waking up. I hate it,” he pulled the covers back over his head.

“Me too.”

I really did. Mornings were not my friend, and it was still morning. But probably just barely. I picked up my phone to check the time, it was just after eleven. I looked over at him, he was stretching those fabulous arms out from underneath the blanket, muscles and sinew and veins flexing and existing just to vex me. 

“Show off,” I teased. 

“What? What are you talking about?”

The tip of my index finger highlighted the features of his arm, through the dips and curves of his muscles into his armpit. 

“Hey!” he giggled, retracting his arm, trapping my hand. “Now I’ve got you!” He used my trapped hand and his arm’s longer reach to pull me down to him and I collapsed onto him rather ungracefully for someone named Grace. 

“We only have a few more of these, you know. These mornings,” he said. 

“Is the world ending? I thought that was last year. We need to stock up on liquor and chocolate right now!” 

“You know what I mean.”

“I do, and lets not talk about it. Not in the agreement.”

“Who else would make me roll around in the grass at seven in the morning?” He grabbed me around the waist, not unlike the tackle he’d pulled on me earlier, pulling me out of my rigid funk.

“There must be someone.” I bit into my smile and dug my fingertips into his ribs. 

“Yeah but…” he started to say something that I didn’t know if I wanted to hear. What was going on in his head? My desire to not know almost outweighed my desire for him to tell me. 

I forced my throat to function. “But what?” I asked quietly. 

“But nothing.” Good, he chickened out and rolled over. “What are you doing today?” 

“I don’t know. Do you have anything you need to do? Any agent-slash-umbrella-holder things you need to do?”

He checked his phone.   
  
“Shit. I do have to work tomorrow most of the day. I have a press junket and I need to go to the premiere for my movie.”

I laughed. “That’s your ‘dinner with friends’?”

“Well, I never know how much to tell people. I will be having dinner with friends, if you count my agent and my publicist as friends.” He shrugged. 

“So you’re free today? 

“Yeah, but apparently they are prepared to make my life very unpleasant if I ignore my phone for eighteen hours again.” 

“Big babies.”

“They really are! How did you know?”

“You know, those Hollywood types. So predictable.”

He punished me with a kiss, and I had to stop before my chest did that opening up thing again. Every time he kissed me it got infinitely worse. And infinitely better. 

“Get dressed,” I said, pulling away. “I have an idea.”

“What?”

“It’s a surprise!” I grinned at him as I got out of bed and pulled on my walk of shame clothing from the night before. I needed to go downstairs and get some clean clothes. 

“Is there nudity involved?” He sounded so hopeful. 

“Nope! You haven’t had enough for one morning? Get your ass dressed!”

“Never enough nudity!” He called from the bedroom as I walked out.  

“Meet me in my room in half an hour!”

“Fine!” 

“Don’t pout! You’ll ruin that face of yours.” I opened the door and let it click shut behind me. 

I did have an idea. I hoped it would work out. Where does one take a famous person when one does not like attention from strangers? 

====

After we dropped off the bike at the rental place we took the train to Chinatown. I led him down the familiar streets, looking for the familiar ornate wooden screen in the window. My memory didn’t fail me, I led him straight to it. We ducked into the dark doorway and opened the second door. Someone gasped. 

“Sony! It has been so long! Look at you!” A voice and nickname from my past chirped at me from out of the recesses of the restaurant. My eyes hadn’t adjusted yet, but I made her out as she stepped into the light. “Come here! Let me give you a hug!” 

“Hello Hong. How are you? How are your boys?” I embraced the fierce and tiny woman in front of me. 

“Good, good. They’re good. In college now! I haven’t seen you since your father’s funeral.” 

“I know. I keep meaning to come by. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay! You’re here now! Come sit down.”

Hong’s gaze finally passed me and landed on Josh. 

“Oooooh! Hello!” She rushed past me in a blur, taking his hands and shaking them both enthusiastically. She looked back at me and said “Who is this handsome man? Husband?” She grabbed our hands, answering her own question. “No rings. Aww. Boyfriend?” 

“Hong! Stop!” I’m pretty sure I was about seventy shades of red at that point. “I will turn around and leave!”  

“Sorry Sony. You know how I am. Crazy old nosy lady.”

I laughed and took a deep breath, avoiding eye contact with him. “Hong, this is Josh, a friend of mine. Josh, this is Hong.”

“Very nice to meet you, Josh.” She said, shaking his hand seriously and calmly, her eyes chock full of mischief.

Luckily he was finding the whole scene hilarious. “Very nice to meet you too, ma'am.” He avoided using her first name, sensing that my familiarity was old and earned. 

“Sony has been coming in here since she was a little girl. If you have any questions, ask me.” She winked at him, back to her old self in less than thirty seconds. She could never keep up any pretense of social propriety for very long. 

“Sit down anywhere!” she gestured around the tiny dark wood paneled room lined with booths and a few small tables. There was a couple huddled in the corner, and a man in a suit eating alone, but otherwise we had the room to ourselves. “I’ll get you some tea.”

We took a seat in a booth in the back. I may or may not have chosen a seat that was as far away from the counter as possible. 

“So your family came here a lot?”

“Just me and my dad. It was our place. We came here every Saturday for years.”  

“I’m sorry about your dad. How long…has it been?” He trailed off, unsure of how to phrase the question. 

“Two years.” I looked at my hands and picked at the ragged skin around my nails. _Schedule a manicure._  somewhere in my head the taskmaster in charge of personal hygiene made a mental note. This place was deeply personal, suddenly I didn’t know why I brought him here at all, except that the idea of hanging out in a cozy dark restaurant owned by a woman who never watched American movies had seemed like a good idea this morning. And I was craving dumplings. 

His wide hands covered mine easily from across the table. “I really am sorry. I can’t imagine what I would do if one of my parents were gone.” 

“He was too young, you know? Barely sixty. He wasn’t even retired yet.” 

“What did he do?”

“He was a security guard. Ex cop. He quit the force when my mom got pregnant with my sister. My mom was an actress. She quit when she got pregnant with me, then she made my dad get a less dangerous job when it became clear she was never going back to the stage. She never quite forgave me for ending her career.”

“Was she any good?”

I scoffed. “I don’t even know. She thought she was.”

“She should have been able to make it work if she wanted it.”

“She didn’t want it. She wanted to be a martyr.” 

My statement hung in the air as Hong sidled up to the table with a teapot and two teacups. 

“Here’s your tea, honey. Do you know what you want to eat? You still love my dumplings like you used to?”

“Yes! I’ve been craving some of your dumplings.” 

Josh shrugged and smiled that crooked smile. “Me too, sounds good.” 

 “Okay! Dumplings! You need food.” She pinched at my arm.

I guess I had lost a little weight with the stress of the last few months, and I was probably thinner than she’d seen me at the funeral. “Thank you, Hong.” 

“Okay, I’ll leave you two alone now,” she cooed.

“Just friends!” I protested, shooing her away. 

“Whatever you say!” she called back at me, always with the last word. “My customer is always right!” 

Watching her go back to the kitchen it hit me that the last time I’d seen my father was here, a few months before he died. He called me out of nowhere and asked if we could have lunch at the old place. He’d seemed distant and sad, and I had been worried. He didn’t tell me what was going on, but I knew there was something. Just over two months later he was gone. The cancer he’d had was incurable, and he didn’t tell anyone. Not even my mother. 

“Hey,” Josh said softly, squeezing my hand. I realized I’d been quiet for several minutes. “Where did you go?”

“Sorry. Just thinking. You know, her husband was a doctor where they used to live? They moved here and used all of their money to open this restaurant while he got his license to practice in this country. But he got killed by a bunch of drunk assholes in the alley when he was closing the restaurant one night.” It was true, but a diversion. Hong’s history was a sad story. She was one of the strongest people I’d ever met. It was easy to reduce her to a caricature, but behind the accent and mothering she was a person who’d fled an awful place for one that was not that much easier on her. People could be cruel in any country. “Wow. That’s horrible.” He glanced toward the kitchen. Something about the way he said it, like he meant it. He felt it. I swallowed hard. 

I decided to tell the truth. “This is the last place I saw him. My dad. He didn’t tell me he was going to die. I wish he had. He had lunch with my sister too, but at the place they used to go. Hot dogs in the park.” I was suddenly self-conscious. “Sorry, I don’t know why I thought this place was a good idea. I was trying to think of somewhere where no one would know who you were and where I was comfortable. I didn’t even think about the…the stuff with my dad. 

“It’s okay.” 

“No, it’s not okay. I hate that we always end up talking about my stupid depressing stuff. You tell me about you.”  
  
“Um, what do you want to know that you don’t already know?”

“You tell me, I said!” I shot him a shy grin. “Sorry. I’m not very good at this being fully clothed in your presence thing.” It was true, I kept getting distracted by his bottom lip and the things I wanted to do to it. 

Focus, Grace. 

“I’ll take that as a compliment, I think.” He lowered his eyes for just a second, the fringes of his lashes hiding whatever it was he was actually thinking. But the corner of his mouth twitched up, so it couldn’t have been completely bad. 

“So what do you want me to know, movie star? I know what kind of music you like, I know you like sports and sex.” I couldn’t help it. It was most of my experience with him. And I knew he was good at it. “And motorcycles. You’re probably a little bit daredevil, right? Adrenaline junkie?”  
  
“A little bit.” His eyes said a lot bit. There were some stories on that subject. But I wanted to know what he wanted me to know. 

“What else?”  
  
“My family means everything to me.”  
  
“I know that feeling.” As much as my mother drove me insane, I’d do anything for her anyway.

“My family and I are so close they’re more like friends. I mean, my parents are still my parents and they call me on shit. But I feel more like they’re friends now that I’m an adult. My mom has always been like, a cool mom though. She knows that I party and she also knows I’m careful and I don’t take too many risks. Sometimes I say stupid shit but it’s more my PR agent that gets after me for that.”

“Stupid shit like what?” 

“Oh, last year I said something while I was getting into a cab about lowering the drinking age in this country and suddenly every picture of me with a drink was proof that I am an alcoholic on a downward spiral.” 

“That sucks.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind if it didn’t effect my career or other people. My PR people have advised me to stick with just the GSA and gay rights issue for now. It’s more ‘relatable.’” 

“Gay rights? Don’t tell me you’re in the closet, I won’t believe you.” 

He laughed. “No, I’m not. But my some of my friends started this organization that helps set up gay straight alliances. Straight people supporting gay people. People supporting people, really. It should be a non-issue.”

“Why do they think that’s more relatable?”

“History is going to judge being anti-gay like being racist. It’s obviously wrong and it will be supported by society, I think.”

“That’s true. But you do really actually care about it?”  
  
“Oh fuck yeah. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t care about it. Why would I?”  
  
“PR?”  
  
He scoffed and sipped his tea, appearing to be a little hurt.

“Two of my uncles were gay. They both died of AIDS in the eighties. My aunt Amanda is gay. She’s awesome. She’s four years older than me. She watches out for me online sometimes.”

 _Younger than me,_ I thought. “I didn’t mean to suggest that you don’t care about it. I was just asking.”  

“I know. I get it a lot, you know? People don’t believe me because I’m an actor. That it really would matter to me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

Appearing just in time to save us from an awkward silence, Hong arrived with our dumplings.

“Vegetarian, just for you!” she said.

“Oh Hong, thank you. I do eat some meat now though. That was just during my Babe phase. Poor Babe,” I frowned. “I still don’t eat pork.”  

“Well, I love my pork. My butcher says they all get fat because they’re happy. So I’m okay. I’d eat them even if they were not happy. I want to be happy. They’re for eating. I tell you this your whole life.” 

“I know. I still don’t eat them, and you’re not going to change my mind, even if you sneak some into my food sometimes.” I winked at her. 

“Did your father tell you that? I was just joking. One time!” She flipped her hand at me and turned away without another word. 

“Is she okay? She’s not mad is she?” Josh whispered. 

“She gets mad for like, two seconds. Then she forgets it ever happened. She’s very in the moment. One thing about her, you always know where you stand. She never sugar coats anything.”  

“That has its good and its bad points I’m guessing,” he laughed. He tipped his head at me pensively. “You should know though, I do eat pork. Bacon is goooood.” 

“It’s a personal decision. I choose to eat cows because they’re stupid assholes. But I don’t eat veal because everything should at least get the chance to grow up to be a stupid asshole.” 

“You’re so funny.” 

“Funny haha or funny weird?” 

“Funny haha. It’s a compliment! I forgot to give you the disclaimer.”

“I forgive you.” I tried to stare him down but he was not taking me seriously. 

“You’re fun too. I had fun this morning. And yesterday. You were amazing. It was like getting a glimpse of your childhood or something. You were just free and crazy and rolling in the fucking grass.”

“Rolling and fucking in the grass, if I remember correctly, and I do because it was this morning. But I didn’t do that when I was a kid.”  
  
“I hope not,” he said, popping a dumpling into his mouth. 

”Says the guy who had someone set up a bed in the middle of a field.”

He shrugged. “I thought it would be nice. To watch the stars from a real bed. I’ve always wanted to do it.”

“Well, you did _do_ it.” 

“You and your puns. I would like to do it for you. When does that usually happen? If I can ask.”

“You can ask. I’m getting there.” I slipped off my sandal and rubbed his leg with my toes under the table. His legs were so solid they were like fucking twin saplings. Flexible but not an ounce of extra anything on them. “If it makes you feel any better I can’t stop thinking about when I can get you naked again.” 

“That does make me feel kind of better.” He reached down for my foot under the table and pulled it up to rest between his legs. I’d have to remember to thank Hong for the extra long table cloths. Somehow. Probably not in specifics. Maybe a nice big tip. 


	17. bonus : [just a little bit]

Her foot was in my lap, exactly where I’d left it.

 She pressed down gently on the fabric of my jeans, feeling out my thickening erection with her toes. I felt the surge and I released a sigh as she found the spot just under my head with her big toe. She picked up on my cues and rubbed out a few slow, torturous circles before moving on. 

Her feet were usually cold. I’d never known a female person who’s feet were always warm, actually. They were always putting on socks and needing blankets and other temperature regulation. Except when she’d been drinking, then her feet were like hot rocks in the bed and I had to admit I’d taken advantage of them when we were sleeping outside. 

Right now they were warm enough. I could feet a distinct heat as she rubbed the entire length of my cock between her toes. I inhaled sharply, I couldn’t help it. She responded with one of those smoldering, incandescent smiles. I don’t even know if she knew she was doing it but sometimes when she was happy or turned on her skin would light up from the inside and her cheeks would flush a soft pink and the way her eyes sparked and her lips spread across her teeth made me want to bite them, made me want to know what else she could do with them. 

She’d given me head before the morning show yesterday, and I wasn’t exaggerating when I told her, it really had been epic. Probably because I hadn’t expected it at all. But when she got down on her knees and looked up at me, lashes fluttering, her eyes dusky with desire; when she’d parted the pink flesh of her lips I thought my knees would buckle for sure. But she held onto my hips as she’d pushed me past the brink and into that hot, wet mouth, pulling me in as she pushed forward. I’d shuddered as I watched her consume my entire length. I’d had a few blow jobs in my time. More than a few. But this one I was going to remember for awhile. And not just because of the circumstances.

She’d whispered to me while I was inside of her last night (probably early this morning, actually). About what she wanted to do when she had more time. I lost it and I’d exploded into her for the last time of the night and she’d moved like she was in slow motion; like she was under water when she threw her head back and her hair spilled down her spine to that spot on her lower back. Her center of gravity. The spot where I could push as hard as I wanted against her mouth, against her breasts, but as long as I held onto her there, she would bend but not fall.

Thinking about yesterday at all was making my balls ache and I reached under the table cloth and unbuttoned my jeans, pushing my underwear to the side, releasing the hound. Her other foot joined the first, allowing for a whole new range of motion. 

I wanted to make her come so badly that it was almost an ache that never went away, even after the five or however many times we did it. I didn’t know what to even call it in my head anymore. It was sex. We were fucking, but we were connecting somewhere else too. I could feel it. I was sure she could feel it too but she never said anything, she just made this face like she felt something that surprised her and then she almost always pulled away. Her mouth would form this perfect oval and her eyes kind of watered. If I couldn’t see her face her hands would clutch at me in a way that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, it was just different. I felt it like a warm spot in my chest, like hot water poured into cold. Swirling and spreading. This morning when it happened she’d pulled away so quickly. Like she was afraid of it. 

It was something I’d felt before but never quite so…in sync. The girls I dated for the most part had a very specific set of skills, but usually something about the experience was a one way street in one way or another. We’d had fun and they were hot but they knew how to get what they wanted. And it seemed I had a weakness for girls who knew how to get what they wanted. 

She was different. She didn’t know what she was doing half the time. She floundered around in the flirting department, she blushed at weird moments and she sometimes went off into her head without any kind of warning but once I got past all of that fumbling she was all white hot instinct. She just knew what to do, and how to move and when to move. She wasn’t even trying to get anything. Not even trying to get off. She just lived in the moment and I loved to watch it. I had a feeling that if she let herself she would be like that in every part of her life. She’d be un-fucking-believable. 

I didn’t have any illusions about changing her, or any of that shit. She was hurt. She’d been hurt badly. But that light that I saw inside her was almost irresistible. I wanted more of it, and I had a horrible feeling that no one had ever tried to pull it out of her. No one had ever even told her she had it. She was amazing and she didn’t even know it. In fact she actively discouraged knowing it. 

I found myself getting kind of weirdly nostalgic now when I thought about our time together. I didn’t really want to work tomorrow, I wanted to stay in bed all day and fuck, or whatever it was that we did. I wanted to see her come. I wanted to see what she was capable of when she really actually let go. 

All of this flashed through my head as she was stroking me with her feet, and I realized that she was going to make me come if I didn’t stop her. But it was already too late. I grabbed a napkin (paper, thank god, that was coming with me to the bathroom in a minute) from the table and caught it just in time. I felt my cheeks flush and my jaw clench with the effort not to make any sound, but a small grunt pushed it’s way through my throat and nose and my cheeks puffed with breath for a quick second and it all came out as a louder than I would have liked “Oof.” She was sitting back, looking devious and gratified with her hands folded over her stomach disguising any movement of her core as her legs worked me under the table. As her final assault she stopped and slid both her feet down my legs at the same time, all the way to my feet.

“Sorry,” she said, not meaning it at all. She relished in having this power over me. And honestly it was pretty fucking hot. Maybe she needed the control to be able to let go. I was more than willing to let her have it. I had to figure it out before Sunday. She probably didn’t even know it herself. No one had ever explored it with her. Considering her past, it made sense. I really didn’t have that much time, but maybe I could start something. Maybe I could give her something I couldn’t give anyone else. Something I didn’t want to give anyone else. 

She smiled and lit up again and I couldn’t help it. In that moment I was just a little bit in love. So I took her hands across the table and I kissed her. Because I could never tell her with words, she wasn’t ready. Maybe she never would be. For me or anyone else. But I could use my tongue to tell her the things she wouldn't let me say.  

 

 


	18. [night light]

We thanked Hong for our late lunch (I paid for my own and left her an extra large tip) and left the restaurant. We walked until we found a dark little hole in the wall bar for drinks of unspecified alcoholic content where we could huddle in the back and not be noticed. 

I decided I liked huddling. It was almost as good as cuddling. We found a booth in the back and shared a seat.

We were chatting to fill the space, about nothing really, and I was starting to feel that slippery fuzzy wavy feeling that meant it was time for me to slow down for a bit. 

My sundress had slipped up my thigh a little. His eye kept dropping to the exposed skin He talked with his hands. They fluttered up and down with his words, sometimes lighting softly on my bare skin, giving me goosebumps. 

I tried to ground myself with a glass of water and some more substantial words. Something that would require a working memory. “So. How is it that you knew my shoe size?” I wondered. “For the boots?” 

“I’m just that good,” he said, his grin devious.

“Well, that goes without saying,” I said. “But you’re going to tell me that you just guessed?”

“Okay, okay,” he laughed. “Remember when we were going back to your room the first time, from the elevator? And I was carrying your shoes…” 

“Ooooh, you are sneaky.”

“Well, you were kind of hammered and stressed out and you didn’t even remember you had shoes. It wasn’t that hard.”

I bumped him with my shoulder, trying very hard to appear angry or at least vaguely stern. I was failing miserably, I could tell by the stupid grin on his face.

“You are a horrible liar, even when you’re not talking.” 

“I think you mean I suck at acting.”

“Okay, but I wasn’t going to say that.”

“Because that would be a professional insult by a professional actor?”

“Sure, we’ll go with that.”

“I’m completely devastated. My mother’s acting genes have failed me.”

He considered me for a minute, gears turning in his head. 

“What?”

“Nothing. Just taking notes.”

“Are you going to sell my life story to Hallmark and play me in the TV movie? Because I’d totally watch that.”

“I don’t know, I don’t think Shannon Doherty has had much work lately. Maybe I should call her.”

“I like Eliza Dushku better. Plus she’s not like, fifteen years older than me! But she might be too good for Hallmark. Maybe lifetime.”

“Maybe.”

His lips straightened and he looked down. 

“Seriously, what?”

He looked up at me, his eyes glinting with intensity. “Do you think that what I do is lying? Acting?”

“Kind of. Isn’t it?”

“I don’t think of it like that. It’s more of an exercise in imagination. A challenge. An art form. Create a whole person and all of their ticks and habits and flaws out of nothing, so that people believe it. It’s a performance. It’s a depiction, not a deception. The audience is in on it. But if you can get them to forget and invest in what you’re doing for for even one second, you’ve succeeded.” He paused, contemplating how to drive his point home. “Is painting something that isn’t real lying? Is writing about something that didn’t really happen lying?”

“I never thought of it like that.” I wanted to go into all the ways my mother had always seemed unreal, unrelateable, fake, and untrustworthy because she pretended too much. But I’d talked about her enough. He had a valid point. 

“It’s like storytelling without being a writer. You get to inhabit someone else for a little while. Take a break from being yourself. There’s a lot of freedom in it," he said.

“And a lot of judgment and rejection in the business. I don’t know if I could handle that part of it.”

“It does take some getting used to.” 

His pocket made a noise. The unmistakable buzz of a phone vibrating.

“Shit. I promised to answer my phone. Hang on.” He pulled his phone out and looked at it to see who was calling. He gave me an apologetic look as he swiped it. “Hey Andre. What’s up, man?”

I pulled my phone out of my purse while he chatted with his friend about whatever. I tried not to listen. I checked my email three times, looked to see if my mom had put up any new pictures of herself on Facebook. I was just pulling up a news site when a text popped up. It was from Andrew, the person I’d interviewed with the day before at the publisher.

 

_**Andrew: Very interested in a second interview.** _

_**Andrew: I think I have a department for you. Aplogize for the text and no phone call, but leaving the office and don't have a good signal. Please respond ASAP.** _

 

I texted him back immediately.

 

_**M** **e: Very interested! Please let me know what time and where.** _

_**Andrew: Tomorrow morning, 11 am. Meet me in my office, I'll introduce you. Very excited. I think you're perfect for it.** _

__

This was incredible. I had felt pretty good about the interview, Andrew and I had hit it off pretty well. We’d gone to the same school (small world) and graduated from the same program, different years. He was about four years ahead of me. We knew the same people, had been to the same bars and hangouts and knew the same school lore. He’d given me his phone number and told me if I ever wanted a gay best friend, he was currently shopping for someone to attach himself to. Like a rash that won’t go away, I think was what he had said. And he was looking for a roommate. He was in HR, so living and working together wouldn’t be a conflict of interest if I joined the company. 

I was sitting there dumbfounded, wondering what department was interested in me when he finished up his conversation. 

“Sorry about that. We have stuff to do once I get back to LA.” 

“Fun stuff?”

“Always. But what were we talking about before we were so rudely interrupted?”

“Your illustrious profession.” 

“What about you? What is it exactly that you do?”

“I write. Kind of.” 

“Ah. So the pot is calling the kettle black!” 

I chuckled. “I guess you could say that. We’re quite a pair.” 

“We are pretty awesome.” He smiled and touched my cheek. “Do you want to get out of here? Walk around a little?”

“We could make out some first.”

“Good idea.”

His face closed on mine as he slid his fingers under my dress. His hand pushed up my thigh closest to him as his fingers pushed down into the space between my legs as his thumb hooked under the edge of my underwear. 

—————————-

When our lips got tired we decided to walk around. 

He draped his arm around my shoulder possessively and I not only let him, I leaned into him and looped my arms around his waist. It was dark, we were invisible, and the soft glow of the lanterns along the street made it feel a little exotic and magical. 

He stopped and pulled me into a dark doorway and pushed me up against the wall. Gently, but firmly. Which was also how he kissed me. 

“I want to say something,” he said. “Don’t get mad.”

“We’ll see,” I said, suspicious. 

“I could get addicted to you,” he said. 

“Stop,” I said. I had no idea what else to say. I’d had three drinks and I was feeling slippery on the slope of Grace. 

I kissed him this time, pulling his head down to me, sucking, dragging my teeth along the inside of his lip. 

I let my chest open up. My heart flopped and fluttered around like a fledgling trying to figure out how to fly. My body wanted to fly too. 

“Come and get me,” I said, pulling away and jogging down the street. He played along and gave chase. I laughed and looked back, he was running with some extra baggage at the top of his left leg. I ducked into the edge of an alleyway, waiting for him to pass. When he did I reached out and grabbed his shirt, pulling him to me, kissing him harder, hungrier. He slid his hands down along my thighs, lifting me up, pushing me against the brick. I could feel him, so fucking hard in his jeans; the cotton of his inseam squeaking against the cotton of my underwear. 

“I want you,” he whispered in my ear. “I want you all the ways I can have you.” 

I gasped and let out a ragged breath as he ground his hipbones into mine. 

“I want to make you come, Grace. I want to so bad.” His breath was hot against my cheek.  

“Oh god, Josh. I want to come. You have no idea,” I gasped. “No. Fucking. Idea how bad I want that. It’s been so long…” 

“Too long,” he said, now using his vocal chords and not just his breath to speak. “You deserve it all the time, Grace. Every time.” 

My world spun. I wanted it. I needed it. I wished for it. And more than anything, right now, I wanted him to be the one to give it to me. 

“Give it to me,” I said out loud, simultaneous to my thought. 

He unzipped his pants and pushed aside my underwear, shoving his cock into me with a fierceness I hadn’t expected but that lit up the now familiar underwater flame. I gasped and wrapped my legs around him, my tongue seeking his and finding it before our lips even met. He moved inside me hard and fast for a few minutes, until he couldn’t go any further without losing it himself, and I would have loved for that to be what finally did it for me. But it didn’t happen. 

He slowed and stopped and pulled out, tucking himself away quickly. 

“It’s not going to happen, is it?”

“No.” I ducked my head and forced him away so I could stand on my own legs, pulling my dress back down around my thighs. ”I’m sorry.” 

“No, don’t be sorry. And don’t be upset.” He tipped my chin up with his finger. “I’m not going to come until you do. Okay?” 

“Where the fuck did you come from?” I whispered. 

“Kentucky,” he grinned. 

“I’m going to have to visit this Kentucky,” I said. 

“You should. It’s pretty nice.” 

He pressed his body back against mine, his erection into the hollow of my hip. He held me and we waited quietly until it subsided.

“You don’t take it personally? When I can’t?” I asked. “You don’t get frustrated?”

“Of course I get frustrated. But I want to make it happen for you.” He held my chin, forcing me to look him in the eye. “You get to have orgasms, Grace. It’s okay.” 

“I know,” I said as I closed my eyes. 

“Look at me.”

I opened my eyes. The amber ring around his pupils were vibrating in the fluorescent light. 

“You,” his face dipped and he nipped at my neck, speaking directly into my ear, “get to have orgasms. Just like everyone else. You’re just as normal as everyone else.”

“Right.”

“Okay normal's not the right word. You’re not regular normal. You’re pretty fucking extraordinary. Which means you should be having like, at least ten times the normal number.” 

I didn’t even know how to react to that. ”I need another drink,” I said. I smiled, hoping that cut the coldness of my reply.

We found another bar not too far away. I ordered a gin fizz and he went with something clear with a lime that I couldn’t remember the name of.  We found a table in the back. With average sized chairs. We ordered some food too. 

“You seem to be really good at the business side of your business. I swear I didn’t mean to eavesdrop but you were only a foot away from my ear.”

He looked at me quizzically.

“Your conversation with your friend Andre? You weren’t just talking about picking up chicks —”

“— he’s gay!” he interjected.

I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, does it? People are people, right? Anyway you two were talking about shit I’ve never even heard of. Don’t even want to know if I would. Marketing and events and it sounds like you are crazy busy.”

“I am. But luckily I have a lot of energy!” he beamed. 

Luckily.

“You have a lot of energy too. I can tell. You’re just worn down. Tired. You need a life that gives you what you need but you have to take it.”

“Such a fucking sage at twenty!” I sighed.

He pulled his straw from his drink and stuck it in his mouth. 

“And you are such a hick!” I laughed. 

“What the fuck?” he laughed. 

“You seem to have a pretty well developed oral fixation.” I tapped the straw lightly. 

“You don’t know the half of my oral fixation.”

“Really.” I felt a stabbing jolt to the lower region. I wanted to hear more about this. 

“Yes.” His hand lit softly on my thigh, right above my knee. 

“Tell me,” I said. 

“I’d rather show you. 

“Not possible at the moment. No table cloths.”

“Bummer. Well…” he leaned in and whispered into my ear.

I slapped my hand on the table. “Check please!” 

He laughed. “We already paid.”

“Oh yeah. Lets get out of here then.”

“Patience,” he said, his hand traveling just millimeters further up my leg, sending an army of party hopping electrons straight to my groin. 

“Fuck patience.” I said. His eyes flashed in response. 

I smiled and wrapped my tongue around my straw. 

“Right. Let’s get out of here.” He took my hand and we took to the streets. He flagged down a cab.

“We should go to my room. Not as many stairs,” I said as I leaned into him, savoring his solidness. “Then you can show me.” 

“Absolutely,” he said, grinning so wide and so sweet I didn’t know if my heart could handle it. Still with that damn straw in his mouth. He was going to spoil me for any other man from Kentucky. And Johnny Depp was from Kentucky. 

In twenty minutes we were at the hotel, climbing the stairs, him pulling me along like he wanted this more than I did. 

 


	19. [ bolt from the blue ]

I woke up and he was gone. He said he might be. It was fine. I stretched out long like a cat in the sun. I was still feeling the effects of last night.

 

 

> _Late last night:_
> 
> _He crawled into the bed with me, still fully clothed._
> 
> _“Hey.” His hand rested uneasily on my shoulder, his voice was barely a whisper. He wasn’t angry anymore. “Do you want to stay all night?”_
> 
> _“You don’t mind? Don’t you have a big day tomorrow? Won’t they come looking for you in the morning?”_  
> 
> _“_ _It’s okay, they won’t be here until late morning. We’ll be fine.”_
> 
> _“You haven’t told anyone about me?”_
> 
> _“Not even my mom.”_
> 
>   _With that all the tension between us broke, and his small joke amused me more than it should have. His arms tightened around me as I laughed. I tried to keep from doing that thing that made me feel so insane, laughing and crying at the same time. The last thing I needed right now was to feel more dysfunctional. I crossed my arms and held onto his biceps, holding myself steady, feeling them flex under my hands. “I haven’t told my mom about you either.”_  

> _“So you’ll stay.”_
> 
> _“I’ll stay.” I turned around and kissed him, and he kissed me back._

I ran my hand down the length of my body, remembering where he had touched me in the beginning, what it felt like. Thinking about it all felt so good that I let my hands attempt to recreate what he had done. Against every expectation, I was actually reaching that final unattainable level.

  

 

> _Much earlier, last night:_
> 
> _We reached my room and exploded through the door, our mutual need fueling the speed with which we shed our clothing. We made it to the bed and I fell backwards into the mattress, laughing. He was kneeling at the foot of the bed, spreading my knees apart, my calves dangling over the edge._
> 
> _He hooked his hands under my thighs and pulled me down to the edge of the bed, draping my legs over his shoulders. His lips danced their way up to the crux of my thighs. His kisses were wet and insistent, until he found what he was looking for. He fastened his mouth onto the tiny kernel that was so full it was broadcasting my heartbeat.  My nerves snapped to life, their chemical reactions popping off fireworks in my brain, setting fire to my whole body._

 

I rose up on my knees, my head pressed against the headboard, facing the wall. I rocked back and forth on my hand, my eyes closed. “Please,” I whispered the word. “Please. I want it, please.” I said the words, and then I screamed them.

 

And then I fell off of everything. My desperation was too much, I had chased it away. I worked my fingers furiously trying to get it back. I had done it before. I could do it. I thought about his fingers where mine were. His mouth, his tongue…

  

 

> _“You taste so good,” he muttered into my flesh, into the darkness._
> 
> _I couldn’t make words happen, but it was just as well because he was incapable of a conversation where a back and forth would be required anyway. His tongue dug zealously into the depths, feeling its way inside, exploring gently at first, then thrusting in and out, curling up at just the right spot, making me jump and tremble and cry out._
> 
> _He responded with a low moan that vibrated into the root of my being, all the way up and out to dissipate and branch out inside me._
> 
> _I begged him to do it again and he did, a loud rumble coming from deep inside him, a beast roaring into the night. His voice echoed deeply through me, all the way up to my teeth, rattling my skull. My voice continued the chain, echoing through the walls of the room._
> 
> _I approached the summit, and I skirted around it, feeling something that wasn’t quite an orgasm, but was so close. A dense concentration of sensation, a contraction that wasn’t physical, but almost was. And then it all just…disappeared. Dissolved. I breathed slowly through my mouth, holding back the rush of panic that pressed outward on my ribs and particularly hard on my sternum._
> 
> _I pulled him up to me, determined not to show my desperate disappointment. This was where we’d see how good I really was at acting._
> 
> _He kissed me, greeting me with the taste of my own body. He was tentative at first, not sure if I was one of those girls who got squeamish at the taste of themselves. I wasn’t._
> 
> _I rolled him over, or rather I indicated that I wanted him to roll over and he flipped us effortlessly._
> 
> _“Stick out your tongue,” I commanded, and he extended the nearly prehensile muscle, his eyes curious, the corners of his mouth twitching._
> 
> _I licked it slowly from the base of the underside upward, sucking lightly at the tip, then swallowing it all, sucking in waves, milking it for something it was never going to give me. He groaned hard, pushing his tongue into my mouth as far as it would go, stroking back._

> _I opened my mouth and pressed my lips to his, turning what I was doing back into a kiss._
> 
> _My mouth wandered slowly southward, down his neck (which was particularly sensitive tonight) grazing his nipples, nuzzling his ribs._
> 
> _He moaned with anticipation as I bit down on the mound of flesh just under his bellybutton, repeating my name and a combination of words that could have been yes or please or yes please._

> _His cock stood straight up at my throat, rising into my hair, his skin stretched tight over the sensitive, fully hardened tissue underneath._
> 
> _I rested his plump and shiny head between my lips, allowing some saliva to flow down the side of his shaft. He grunted and thrust his hips up involuntarily._
> 
> _He grunted an apology, but I only smiled up at him._  
> 
> _I kneeled on the bed between his legs, one hand planted on each side of his compact hips._
> 
> _I took my time with him, alternating between my hand and my mouth. I brought him to the brink; made him almost come so many times I lost count. I didn’t know if he would let me finish him, he may have been under the impression that I had come while he was going down on me. It had been a delicious sensation, but not the one he wanted me to feel._
> 
> _I worked him to his end slowly, relishing every time he curled his fingers in my hair and tried not to push too hard, every time he slapped the bed and arched his pelvis into my mouth. I held him back with one hand around the base of his cock or two fingers wrapped around the base of his scrotum. When I was ready, when I couldn’t stand not knowing anymore where I stood I pushed my thumb up into my mouth to join my tongue, wrapping both hands around the length beneath. I popped my lips off at the last second. What’s a fireworks show without the fireworks? He didn’t disappoint. He shot high and with impressive volume._
> 
> _So much for his “I won’t until you do” pledge._

 

I screamed the words one more time, but it was no good. I thought desperately about how he’d looked, what his face had done when he thought he’d finally satisfied me. But I had already hit the ground. I let out a sob and fell forward onto the pillow.

 

 

 

> _“You came, right?” He bit his lip nervously._
> 
> _I tried to smile, but it was full of regret and apology._
> 
> _“You didn’t? FUCK.” He turned away from me, his hand rubbing his forehead. “Shit.”_
> 
> _“Josh, please, don’t…”_
> 
> _“You let me think that, and you let me come, after what I told you earlier.” I’d spit on his gesture and he was angry. It had taken a lot to get him angry, but I had done it. “Goddamnit, Grace.”_
> 
> _He got up and started to dress._
> 
> _“Where are you going?”_
> 
> _“Up to my room.”_
> 
> _“Why?”_
> 
> _He turned to me. “Why the fuck do you think? You just basically fucking lied to me. What’s the goal of this whole,” he gestured around the room, ending with me “…everything. I thought it had happened.”_
> 
> _“I’m sorry.”  I said._
> 
> _“Yeah, me too.”_
> 
> _I let him go. I didn’t have any real choice._

 

“Why,” I cried. “Why why why can’t I just have this one thing?” Sobs wracked my body and I curled over onto my side into the fetal position.

Then I felt him. I felt him get onto the bed and curl himself up around me.

“Oh my god!” I screamed, angry, horrified, embarrassed, sobbing. “You scared me.” My voice was small now and I covered my face. “Did you see me? Why did you have to see that? I thought you were gone.”

“Yeah, I saw. I’m sorry. I was just in the bathroom.”

“How much did you see?” 

“The important parts.”

The sound that left my throat was pure, unadulterated frustration. It was nothing else.

“Shhhhh…” he whispered. “Shhhhh…it’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” I sobbed. ”Try to imagine if this is what happened to you. Every. Fucking. Time.” I punctuated each word with a useless punch to my pillow. “Just try. I’m so tired of it.” My voice cracked on the last words. 

“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. Shhhh.” He stroked my hair and held me until I couldn’t cry anymore, leaving just me, a dry but exposed wound. He got up, and I didn’t bother to turn around. He was leaving. I didn’t blame him. I would let myself out.  

 

 

 

> _I spent an hour torturing myself about it. There was no way I could sleep._
> 
> _I took a quick shower and climbed the stairs to the penthouse._
> 
> _Damnit. What was I doing? Sleep, I rationalized. I knew if I ever wanted any I needed to settle this with him._
> 
> _I knocked on the door. He opened it pretty quickly, running his fingers through his hair. He hadn’t been sleeping either._

> _“Hey.” I said._
> 
> _“Hey. Come in.”  He moved aside to let me pass. “What’s up?”_
> 
> _“I want to explain. Apologize.”_
> 
> _“About what?”_
> 
> _I looked at him. “Okay, I know,” he said. “Sit down?”_
> 
> _“Yeah. Thanks.” I sat slowly. I took a deep breath. He looked at me expectantly, impatiently. Angrily, but the fire was dying behind it._
> 
> _“All the guys I’ve been with… even guys that I’ve had long term relationships with, they’re not like you. They don’t do things the way you do. I just wanted to give it back to you when you thought you’d done it for me…I just wanted to know what that felt like. Reciprocity. There are no guarantees that this will even happen for me, you know. I just wanted to feel normal for once.”_
> 
> _“Being normal is overrated,” he mumbled._
> 
> _“Only if you have a choice.”_
> 
> _He was silent. I could guess what he was thinking, but not saying. Everyone has choices. And it’s true. But sometimes the choices get taken away. Then you have a different set of choices._
> 
> _“I know,” he said finally._
> 
> _“Please, Josh. I’m so sorry.”_
> 
> _“You can’t lie to me again. Even by omission. You can’t let me believe that something’s happened when it didn’t.”_
> 
> _“I know. I won’t.”_
> 
> _“I won’t play these games. You can’t test me. I really want to do this with you. For you. Just accept that. I want it to be real. Please.” His voice was fractured, I had the feeling that this was really the last time he wanted to say it._
> 
> _I nodded and swallowed thickly. He was right. I was testing him, and it was completely unfair. I said so._
> 
> _He looked at me, for a long time. He studied my face for what seemed like forever._
> 
> _“Come here,” he said, holding out his hand for me. I stood in front of him, waiting. He pulled me down to him like he did that first night, pulling my head to his shoulder, his arms looped around my hips. Except this time we had on all of our clothes._
> 
> _“You can have what everyone else has. It’s just got to be a little different. There’s nothing wrong with being different. I like different.”_
> 
> _I didn’t say anything. I pushed my hand up under his shirt, to feel his skin, to feel his heart. It was strong. I pulled his hand up to mine. It could be strong too, maybe._
> 
> _“Lets go to bed, Ms. Jones,” he said after awhile._
> 
> _“Okay Mr. Hutcherson.”_
> 
> _“Can we cuddle?” he asked as he led me to the bedroom._
> 
> _“Yes,” I said, hoping he couldn’t see the yearning and relief pooling in my eyes, or hear it in my voice. “We can.”_

 

I thought he had left. But I felt him curl up around me. He had removed his clothes. He was silent and naked and smooth. He matched the convex of his face to the concave of my neck, the curve of my back with the flatness of his belly, the soft fullness between his legs to the valley between mine, the back of my knees with the front of his. He slipped his feet around mine, entwining us from head to toe. I felt his hand find my thigh, find my hip, squeezing gently. He found the curve of my belly, the half moon under my bellybutton, the dip in my waist, the bottom of my ribs. He stopped there and latched onto me, holding on as tightly as he could. He found  _me_. And there was nothing I could do but let him. There was nowhere to go any more than there had been in the elevator when I’d panicked at his first touch. 

When his softness slowly eased into inevitable arousal as our bodies stayed pressed together, he pulled back from me and pulled a pillow in between us. 

We stayed that way until my breathing was slow and steady and even and the black hole beast had settled. I turned to look at him. 

He got up and took my hand, pulling me with him. “Come on.” He took me by my tired, defeated shoulders and led me to the bathroom.

He filled the tub and we stepped into the hot water. I sat down in between his legs, facing him, my legs around his waist, tucked behind him. I let him hold me some more, feeling listless and useless and frustrated.  

“Tell me how it feels,” he said, looking at me so intensely I had trouble not flinching and letting my eyes flee. 

“How what feels?” I asked.

“How it feels, right before you get to that point where you don’t come.”

“It feels…it feels so good. It feels amazing. It feels like imploding and blooming and exploding and flying. Everything contracts and promises to give me the…to give me the orgasm, I can feel it, just right there, I can almost reach it, it almost pushes through and then I just…fall. I fall off of it. It just goes away. Poof!”

I illustrated the absurdness of the poof with my hands. I was toeing the edge of hysteria. “It’s like driving a car up a steep hill and when you’re almost to the top, you can almost see over it to the other side; and the engine stalls and you go all the way back to the beginning.” I was on the verge of tears again. “I just want to be able to do it, you know? To get there. Just a few times. Just a small percentage.” 

“Tell me what you were thinking about right before  before you fell off.”

I smiled and whimpered, remembering. “I was thinking about you, last night.”

“The good part.”  
  
“Yes. The good part.”

“It felt okay, what I was doing?” He was unsure of himself now. He was a fucking Olympic level cunnilinguist and I had made him question himself. 

“It was amazing.” I took his face in both my hands. “You did everything right.”

He nodded and kissed me quietly.  

We washed and got out of the tub, laying back down on the bed on our backs, our hands linked together. 

I turned to him, resting my forehead against his shoulder. 

“What do you need?” he whispered to me, sounding so unsure. His apprehension cracked at me like a whip. You did that, cold and angry Grace said inside my head. 

I thought about it. What the fuck did I need? I had no idea at this point. I was so beyond frustrated that the word didn’t even fit what I felt anymore. All of his gentleness and thoughtfulness and sweetness had only left me wishing I could please him by giving him what he wanted. To please me. And there was no pretending. Not after last night. Anger replaced everything gentle I felt. 

“Fuck me,” I said, raw and exposed, my frustration taking its toll finally. 

“What?”

“Fuck me like you don’t give a shit. Push me down and fuck me hard. Just fuck me.”  

“I’m not going to do that. Damn it. I’m not going to do that to you.”

“Then just forget about me for a minute.” I turned over and got up on my hands and knees. “Don’t look at my face. What is it those guys say? ‘Bitches go face down, ass up.’” 

“Shit, Grace…” 

“Just do it, Josh. Please?” I was begging for it. I was begging him to objectify me, depersonalize me, use me. Abuse me. 

“Grace. I can’t. I’m not going to do that with you. Not right now. Not this way.”

I fell back down onto the bed and screamed into the bed. 

I rolled over finally, looking up at him. He looked lost, confused. 

“Josh…” I started. 

He just looked at me. “Grace.”

“I trust you,” I said. 

He brushed his lips to my forehead.

“Do you understand what I’m saying? I trust you. I know you would never hurt me. I know you want to help me. Please, just do this. Just… take me. You said you wanted me any way you could have me.”

“I did.” He looked down, uncertain. 

“Please.” I straddled his legs, running my fingers up to his equally uncertain erection. I licked my lips and I descended on him, taking him into my mouth. I pulled up slowly with my lips from base to tip and looked at him. 

“I need you.” I said through my mouthful. 

He sucked in a shuddery breath. 

“I want you,” I sucked hard on the tip, “to fuck me.”

He threw his head back. “Shit!” 

A few minutes of rough and hungry plummets later and he was ready. 

I slid off of him and turned, on my hands and knees, my legs slightly spread straddling his legs, my head hanging. 

I felt him move and then he pushed into me, his need feral and raw. 

He hesitated for a second. It was a question. 

In answer I cried out, pushing back onto him. “Please.” He pumped into me hard from behind, grunting and growling. I tossed my head, my hair piling on my back and he grabbed a handful close to my scalp and pulled. The sensation was disturbing and insanely arousing. His hand tangled in my hair, holding my head back; the dark and primal noises he was making and every single thrust he made into me, hard and unforgiving, pushed me to the edge of a line I’d never crossed. 

“Harder!” I ordered. 

He stopped and let go of my hair. I flipped my head around and looked at him. Tears streaked his cheeks. 

“I can’t do this,” he let a soft hiccup wrack his chest. “I can’t.” 

“Fuck! Yes you can. You were doing it!” 

He pulled out and pulled me up by my waist firmly. 

“I can’t do it. I’m not going to force you to come. I won’t do it. It’s wrong. You’re like a kid who’s in trouble for hitting someone who wants to be hit back, to be punished, to make it even. I’m not going to fucking play that game.” 

That stung, in that way that truth does. I leaned back into him, defeated and sorry. “You thought…” I started to ask, my ground shaky. 

He turned me around by my shoulders so he could see my face. “If it wasn’t why did you want me to do it? You wanted me to even up the score by hurting you back. I’m not going to ruin this, whatever is between us right now by doing that. It would always bother me, Grace. I am not that guy.”

“I didn’t mean…” My head hung. “This is all so new. You. I told you before. I’m not used to being treated like…like a person. I’m usually just a conquest.” I lost all the strength in my legs and my body folded down on itself. “I’m not used to this. I don’t know how to do it this way. Honestly. Without the struggle.” 

“Fuck. Grace. Are you kidding me?”

I raised my head. “No! No, I’m not kidding you. I’ve never met anyone like you, okay? No one’s ever done any of the things you’ve done for me. No one. No one’s ever been so concerned about…” I couldn’t anymore. “I’m really fucking broken.” 

“Shit.” His hands smoothed my back. “Come over here. Lay down.”

I let him take my hand and I put my head down on the pillow. He stretched out next to me, his body hard and soft at the same time. I couldn’t help being fascinated by his flaccid penis and the way it draped across the top of his thigh. The thin skin was so pale and smooth; the veins underneath the finely wrinkled, plump surface looked fine and elastic. 

“Listen to me,” he said, drawing my eyes back up to his face. “Don’t ever say that, okay? I don’t want you to say it anymore. You’re hurt. But people who get hurt can heal. You’re not broken. You’re not irreparable. You’re not going to be the same person, but who the fuck is? No one. Everything changes people. Nothing is static. You just do the best you can. You work with what you’ve got. Do you want to know what I think you’ve got?”

I nodded because I couldn’t speak. A stabbing sob threatened to bubble to the surface. 

“You’re smart. You’re fun. You’re funny, you’re sexy as hell. You have this…spark. Fire. That I’m so attracted to. But it’s been starved for a long time and you hide it. I understand why.” His hand cupped my cheek and he focused his hazel eyes hard on my green. “I do. But you have to not be afraid of everything anymore. A little fear is healthy. It keeps you safe. But you are amazing. I’ve never read anything you’ve written but the way you talk, I can imagine. You think about things. You have things to contribute. And you’re beautiful.” His hand ghosted my ribs to my hip. His fingers curled around my hipbone and pulled me toward him. “You deserve to be noticed for who you are, not taken for someone’s twisted projection. Who you really are. You deserve for someone to care about you. It’s scary, but you’ll get used to it.” 

I wiped the moisture from my eyes.  _I’ll get used to it_. There were so many things to say but all I could manage was a weak “Thank you.” But I meant it, completely.

“You can do anything you want to.”

“I can’t turn into an artichoke or a yellow velvet sofa.” 

“Smart ass.” He smiled. It was small but it was genuine. “You can do anything you want within the rules and laws that govern our universe. How about that?”

“Okay.” I snuggled down into his arms. 

“Tell me what I can do now,” he whispered. 

“Don’t pity me.” 

“I don’t.” He pulled me to him, his arms a refuge, keeping me safe right then even from myself. 

We lay there until the sun came on strong through the window. “Shit, what time is it?” he jumped up, wiping his eyes. He grabbed his phone. “Fuck. I have to get ready.” He walked over to where I was still sitting naked on the bed, my head in my hands. 

He stood there for a long awkward moment. 

“Come here.” He pulled me up onto my knees and wrapped his arms around me. “We’ll get there, okay? We will. You will.”

I just nodded into his shoulder as he dipped below my waist and squeezed a cheek with one hand and brushed over my hair with the other. He kissed me lightly. “I’ll see you and your sexy ass later, okay? I’ll call you when I’m done with the premiere. There’s an after party, so it might be late.” He gave me a final squeeze and a playful smack.

“Okay. I promise to have my phone with me. I’ll even turn the ringer on,” I said. He smiled and I paused, holding onto his hand; not letting him go for just a second. “Thank you.”  

His eyes were hollow and sad still but he nodded. There was nothing I could do about it now. I pulled on my clothes quickly. I needed to get back to my room to get ready to see Andrew anyway. 

“See you later.” He let go of my hand. 

“See you later,” I said as I walked out the door. 


	20. [idk my new BFF]

under reconstruction


	21. [too late]

 

_**Josh: Almost done with work, party is fun but want to see you.** _

_**Josh: txt me back ok** _

 

He texted me from the party. It was late. But I was still up, buzzing with excitement about my job news, with apprehension about seeing him after this morning. I didn’t want to hear about the party. I wanted to see him. 

 

_**Me: Text me when you're on your way** _

_**1:35 AM Josh: on my way. fifteen minutes. meet me in my room. have an idea.** _

_**Me: I'll be there.** _

__

I reached the top of the stairs and my heart dropped. It literally felt like it had moved at least a couple of inches, my ribcage unable to contain the sudden weight. There he was, looking dapper as hell (which immediately ignited a flame below deck without my permission) in a tux, stepping out of the elevator with two remarkably beautiful girls. One for each arm. Were these the vapid party girls he’d complained about? No way of knowing. Maybe they really were lovely people inside and out. It didn’t matter. This was his idea? Some girls to add to the mix? I couldn't do it.

I snapped a picture with my phone through the safety glass window on the door and booked it back down the stairs before he could see me. I don’t know why I took the photo. To remind me, when I got weak. 

 

_My heart is like the ocean…_

 

I stomped back down the stairs, my elation evaporated, my good news unshared. Fuck him. Fuck him and his girls. Whatever. In the end it really was none of my business. But it was difficult to explain that to the tears that were stinging my eyes, making it almost impossible to use the key card to get into my room. 

Fuck this. It was done. I didn’t need the fucking orgasm, I didn’t need these fucking feelings. But the corner of my heart that still wanted him nagged at me like a stupid bitch. _You never said either of you wouldn’t see other people,_ it rationalized. _Maybe they were friends._ SHUT UP, shut up, I told me. It’s better this way. Clean break. I assumed the fetal position on top of the comforter with my phone next to my head. 

Later, I don’t know how much later, through my sleepy haze I heard the phone buzz and chime and I ignored it. I didn’t even have the energy to open my eyes. There was no way my limbs were going to accept commands. Sleep reclaimed me before I could give it any further thought. 

The next thing that woke me was the pounding on the door. Adrenaline shot through my system and I was wide awake almost instantly. 

“Grace! I know you’re in there.” Shit. What was he doing? Didn’t he have enough entertainment arranged, he had to drag me into it? I was not up for a foursome. Even a twosome, at this point. Even a onesome. 

I held perfectly still. It was illogical, he couldn’t see through the door and there was no chance that he could hear me breathing, but I still found myself holding my breath and wishing my heartbeat would shut the fuck up.

“Grace, come on! Open the door, please?”

I ignored him. 

Then my phone rang. That old fashioned ring that he probably hadn’t heard in its original form in his lifetime. He’d probably never dialed a rotary phone, either. I didn’t move. It kept ringing.

“I can hear your phone! Let me in, please? I’m going to wake people up.” 

“How do you know I didn’t just leave my phone in the room?” I yelled back. 

“I knew it! Come on, baby, please. Open the door.” It was the first time he’d ever used an endearment with me. And he sounded so tired and desperate. It caught me off guard. 

I opened the goddamn door. 

“Get in here before someone calls security,” I said. 

“Why didn’t you text me back?” he asked, his voice slurred and heavy. The door clicked shut behind him.  

“Are you drunk?” I asked him. 

“Yeah. I fuckin’ got drunk when you didn’t fuckin’ text me back.” 

“Nice.” I picked up my phone and scrolled through the messages I’d ignored. I also noticed the time. It was just after four. 

_**Josh:** _

_**2:28 AM you there?** _

_**grace?** _

_**hey lady wake up** _

_**2:41 AM want to see u** _

_**3:08 AM grace im upstairs where r u?** _

_**3:31 AM im coming dwn thre** _

_**relly i am** _

_**3:51 AM rite now** _

_**grace** _

 

“I don’t really want to do anything right now Josh. I’m really tired and I…” I wanted to tell him I had seen him with the girls, and that I was pissed off and hurt, but then I would have to admit to him that I had feelings of some kind for him. I was not going to fucking do that now.  

“You what? You’re being mean is what,” he pouted.

“Mother of…here, dude.” I corrected myself. “ _Josh_. Sit down on the bed. Let me get you some water.” 

“Okay,” he slurred and plunked down hard on the soft bed. 

“How much did you drink?” 

“I don’t know. I lost count when the bottles were empty.” 

“Oohhh dear. Bottles? The scotch? What else?” 

“Yeah, aaaall the scott-tches. Are all gone. That’s a funny word, Grace. Not Grace. Grace is a pretty word. Scotch.” He tried to watch his own lips while he repeated the word ‘scotch’ a few more times. “Whisky. Thats funny too. Whhhiisky.” 

“I know what you mean.” My voice was curt and impatient. I didn’t mean it to be, but it was. 

“Why are you mad at me?” he pouted. 

I handed him the glass of water and crossed my arms. 

“It’s none of my business what you do when you’re not with me.”

“What? What the fucking fucks are you talking about?”

I sighed. “I came up to see you and…I saw you. And those girls. Getting out of the elevator.”

“‘Those girls’? Okay one of the ‘those girls’ is my manager’s daughter, and the other one was her friend. They were at the party after the premiere. They came up with me to get a ride back to their hotel. From my manager. Who was in my room.” 

“Oh, fuck.”

“Yeah, ‘Oh fuck.’” 

I stared at him.  

“It’s still none of my business. Even if you’d had wild crazy sex and they’d —” I stopped myself. I had been about to say — and they’d both come eighty seven times each and blown you until you passed out. What the fuck was I doing that for? Comparisons were stupid. I knew that. 

“They’d what?”

“Nothing. It was stupid.” I sat down and steadied his glass, which was in imminent danger of spilling its contents. 

“You were jeal-lous!” he singsonged. His smile was victoriously huge and infuriatingly smug.  

I had to admit it now. But I didn’t have to be happy about it. “Yes, I was a little jealous. I’m fucking human.” 

“You are fucking human. I like fucking humans. Especially fucking human females. _You_ are a human female.” He poked my thigh and bumped me with his shoulder, falling too far and landing face first in my lap, spilling what was left of his water on the floor. I tried not to laugh. He was already laughing at his own joke enough for both of us. 

“And you are pretty sloshed, my boy.”

“One,” said his muffled voice from between my thighs. He held up his finger, “I’m not a ‘boy’ and two,” he held up another finger, “am I yours?” He turned his face up to look at me. 

“Nope. You’re nobody’s but your own. Come here, let’s get your clothes off and get you to bed.” 

“ _Now_ you’re talking.” I stood him up and attempted to steady him.

“You are very observant. Words are indeed coming out of my mouth.” I unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it off his arms. 

“I like it when you take my clothes off.” 

Ugh. I liked it too.  _Too much,_ I thought. I unfastened his pants and let them slip down his hips. Electricity crackled between the backs of my fingers and the hair on his lower belly. _Deep breath,_ Grace. I pulled him forward by those hips (I couldn’t stop the tingles that bloomed between my legs) stepping out of the pants so I could pick them up. I folded the tux carefully over one of the chairs. 

He stood there wobbling like a fool in his underwear and socks. I thought about our first night and the late conversation. The feeling of him holding me, naked in his lap… 

He cocked his head at me inquisitively, puppy face on high.  “Grace?”

“Yes Josh?” 

“I want to tell you… I…” 

I caught him under his arms as he leaned backwards toward the bed, nearly toppling. With one hand I pulled back the bedclothes and with the other I guided him down. Fuck, he was heavy when he was dead weight. It was all the fucking muscle. I was going to get stuck underneath him. And he would probably like that. “Help me out here,” I grunted. He shifted his weight just enough to free me and swung his legs up, curling up on his side. I pulled the blanket up over him. 

“You can take advantage of me if you want,” he said. 

“Is that what you were going to say?”

“No. But you can. Just be gentle.” 

I undressed and climbed in next to him and he scooted up to me. I didn’t want to know what he was going to say, I had a feeling it would have hurt in more ways than one. 

 

“Grace?” He asked, his eyes boring into mine. 

“Josh?” I let my gaze fall. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t keep eye contact. 

“I’m human too.”

My eyes snapped back up to meet his. They were full of something that looked so familiar, something I was sure he kept from almost everyone. The look of a person who’d been hurt a few too many times that counted. 

“I know.” I touched his cheek with my fingertips. He captured my hand and held it to his lips. 

“Can I share your pillow? Just for a little while? 

I nodded and curled into him. 

“You’re really hot,” he said. 

“I feel fine. I don’t think I have a fever.”  

“I mean I like having sex with you,” he whispered. 

“I like having sex with you too,” I admitted, fairly confident that he would have no memory of this in the morning.

“Even when you don’t come?”

“Yes. Even then. You should go to sleep now.” I rubbed his arm softly and after a few minutes he was snoring lightly in my ear. What was I doing? And what was I going to do when he was gone?

I concentrated on what this felt like, right now. His solid but yielding presence, his warm arms wrapped around me; his hold heavy but firm. Tomorrow didn’t matter. Yesterday didn’t matter. Right now was pretty fucking nice and it would have to be enough. 

 


	22. [free fall]

There are two things I hate in the morning. The sun and my bladder. Both were making their presence known. Somehow I managed to creep out and back into the bed without waking up Josh. Actually there was no mystery. He slept hard.

I watched him for awhile. I liked watching him sleep. He was still and I could see all of his freckles and scars, the texture of his skin and the who knows how many days of stubble he was working on. I could stare at his eyelashes for hours. His lips were also kind of mesmerizing; thin and lithe with that devious upward curve at the corners. He twitched and licked them in his sleep, I could imagine that he had had a pacifier as a baby and he never got to sleep without it. Like muscle memory still kicked in when he fell deep, remembering what it was like to feel safe and relaxed. 

He stirred occasionally, mumbling nonsense or sometimes names. I tried hard not to make a sound but I laughed when he played with Driver in his dreams, his legs twitching, jogging some imaginary path, throwing an imaginary ball. He really was just a very large puppy sometimes.

I startled when he said my name. I wasn’t sure at first. Maybe I’d just heard him wrong. But then he said it again. 

“Please,” he said. Well, technically he said “Please sunglasses stupid camera pop can’t buy that car bro.” And I wasn’t sure what it had to do with me at all. I nuzzled up close to his head, which was turned sideways so I could get my ear right up next to his mouth. I could feel the soft warm whisper of his breath in my ear and it caused some sensations for me that I didn’t want to deal with yet. He went on about cars for awhile, and then he said my name again. And this time there was no mistaking his meaning. 

“Grace,” he pleaded. “Come with me.” 

Where? Whatever was happening in his dream, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know but morbid curiosity kept me glued to his side. 

“I want you.”

I turned my head. “I want you too,” I whispered to his sleeping face, my heart exploding in my chest a little like an egg in a microwave. Fast and messy. 

He rolled over onto his back, his hand making its way down his belly. Surely he was not going to deal with in his morning wood in his sleep. I thought that was just teenagers. Then I remembered how old he really was. Shiiiit. I felt like I should wake him up, like I should close my eyes or something. But I couldn’t. Instead I turned my back to him and pretended to be asleep. Maybe I would fall back asleep. 

Nope. I felt his arm moving and knowing exactly what he was doing, especially with the noises escaping those elastic lips, I felt my body respond. I turned to him just as he was turning towards me. “Grace…” I froze. “Grace, come with…me… LA.”

My breath stopped. I literally couldn’t make air move in or out of my throat. His face was so close to mine. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t anything. No thinking, no breathing, no heartbeat, for what seemed like forever. But it couldn’t have been that long, because I was still alive. 

“Josh.” I shook his shoulder gently. “Josh, wake up.” 

He groaned and increased his intensity. “Fuck, yes! Right there.” 

He was killing me. He was awake, this was a joke, and he was trying to kill me. But his eyes were still moving under his lids and his breath was still even and unhitched. 

“Josh!” I shook him a little more firmly. 

He stopped suddenly and sucked in a breath. He must be awake now, I thought.

“Fuuuuuuuuuck. My head.” he groaned, holding his forehead. He was awake.

“Which one?” I pecked his cheek and nodded towards the tent in the sheets.

“The one…” he felt his erection and rolled onto his side self-consciously. “Ugh. Both of them. But right now the one on my shoulders.” 

“Let me get you something.” I rolled out of the bed and got him a glass of water and some pills. He took them and fell back, groaning. 

“I think I’m still drunk. Can you help me? I need to um…I need to use the bathroom.”

I laughed. “Sure.” 

“What the hell happened last night?” 

I paused then went with, “I fell asleep and you got drunk and came down here.” 

“Uh, that’s not exactly how I remember it.”

“Okay and I may have seen you with your manager’s daughter and been a little…upset.” 

“That’s closer. Did you undress me and take advantage of me?” 

“Just the first part. You were in no condition for anything but sleep.” I pulled his arm over my shoulder and let him lean on me while I walked him to the bathroom door. 

“Must have dreamed the rest." 

“Must have,” I said. “Do you need help in there or just to the door?”

“Just to the door, thanks. I’m pretty sure I can handle the rest on my own. I’ll yell if I fall down and can’t get up.” 

“Okay. Just checking!” 

“Thanks for offering.” 

“I’m glad you said no.” 

“Pretty mean for someone who admitted she likes having sex with me last night,” he faked shock and then grinned a mile or so wide before he shut the door in my face.

Shit. “What do you want to do for breakfast?” I called through the door. 

“Jesus, can’t you wait until I get out of the bathroom?” 

“I’m hungry.” 

“I’m…I need a cold shower.” 

“Are you sure you don’t need any help?”

He opened the door and peeked out. “I don’t want to do that until you…do that.” He indicated the general region of my reproductive organs. “Fuck, my head hurts.” His head thumped against the door frame. 

“You need food. Go get in the shower. I need a shower too, actually. 

“Wanna share?” He ran his hand through his hair that was still stiff with product from his event last night. “Otherwise I’ll be maybe fifteen minutes.” 

“Okay,” I smiled. “I know an awesome place for chocolate chip pancakes and eggs.”

“Come on,” he grabbed my hand and pulled me in. 

 

 

He did not appear to be the type of hangover victim who emptied their stomachs for half the day after a long night out. He was an eater. Boy could pack away a whole lot of food. And he was doing it. 

I had the chocolate chip pancakes with no syrup, three eggs and wheat toast. It was a hangover ritual for me. I’d been going to the same diner getting the same thing on Saturday or Sunday post-drunk mornings since high school. And even though I had been sober by the time I’d climbed the stairs up to the penthouse last night I still felt like I needed it. 

“So I got a job yesterday,” I ventured between bites. 

“What? Why didn’t you tell me?” 

I laughed. “Um, because you were shitfaced, honey.” 

“I remember most of it,” he said. “…honey,” he smiled down into the hash browns that he had inexplicably drenched in syrup. I shook my head. 

“Sorry, I made a new best friend yesterday and he’s in love with that word. I guess it rubbed off.” 

“Oh.” He looked slightly disappointed. 

“Also I like you.” I rubbed his knee with the side of my foot under the table in an attempt to reassure him. There were no tablecloths, so I also shot him a look that I hoped read as don’t-get-too-excited. 

He just stared at his hash browns for a long time. 

“Is your head hurting still? I have some more ibuprofin in my purse.” 

“No, that’s not it.” 

“What’s up?” 

“When do you start your job?” 

“Monday. It’s amazing, really.” I rambled on for a good three or four minutes before I realized that he hadn’t been changing the subject, that me getting a job was part of what was bothering him.

“You’re not happy for me?” 

“Oh, no! I’m totally stoked for you. It’s fantastic.” he said, just a touch too enthusiastically. 

“You might need a rehearsal on that performance, I’m not buying it.” 

“Okay. Fine.” He frowned. “I was going to ask you if you wanted to…if you wanted to come to LA with me for a week sometime soon. Next week maybe. Just as a vacation, sort of. An extension. I kind of… don’t want to say goodbye for good. I would have to work but…” he trailed off, looking at me like I’d just made him admit something that had made much more sense before he said it out loud. 

I was speechless. Again. This was a fucking epidemic, with him. After his sleep talking this morning, it wasn’t exactly a shock, but it was a shock that he hadn’t just been babbling nonsense in his dream. 

I looked away. Shit. Part of me wanted him to feel this way, but it complicated things infinitely and I didn’t want that. 

“Okay,” I said finally. 

“That’s all you have to say? ‘Okay’?" 

“Okay that’s awesome? Can we not talk about this here? I think people are starting to recognize you.” It was true, there were a few people staring and whispering with cell phones out possibly trying to snap inconspicuous photos. 

“Yeah. Let’s go. Are you done?”

“I am now.” My stomach was churning enough that I let him throw some bills on the table and I didn’t even worry about settling up with him.  

We got back to the hotel and all I wanted to do was sleep again. We were full of food and feelings and awkward shit. Why did things have to get awkward? They always did. 

We went up to the penthouse. Because let’s face it, it was nicer up there. This was our last night, our last twenty-eight or so hours together. At least that’s what I thought it would have been. What if I hadn’t gotten the job? Would I consider just getting on a plane with him and spending another week on his turf? I don’t know. I might have. But now it was moot. 

I was standing by the window looking out at the smooth flow of morning light on the city when he came up behind me and brushed the hair from my shoulder. He planted his lips so softly on my neck, right under my ear, making me shiver and sigh. His arms circled my ribs and I melted backwards into him. My knees wanted to give out, and I felt a sudden bittersweet pain ping softly through the empty hallways of my heart. 

 

_My heart is like the ocean. It gets in the way. So close to touching freedom, and then I hear the guards call my name._

_And my priest says “You ain’t savin’ no souls.” My father says “You ain’t makin’ any money.” My doctor says “You just took it to the limit.” But here I stand, with this sword in my hand._

_You can say it one more time, what you don’t like._

_Let me hear it one more time now._

_Have a seat while I_

_take to the sky._

 

That’s how the song ended. The woman ignored the men in her life, took up her sword and flew off into the sunrise or sunset or whichever was the most empowering. In the end he was just another person telling me what they wanted me to do. I had to do what I needed to do. 

And he knew it. His lips were already memorizing my skin. He was recording every inch of it from my jaw to my collarbone, listening to every sound, every sigh, soaking it up like a sponge, keeping it somewhere. I didn’t know where. But somehow I knew that he wanted to keep it. 

I turned around to face him and his arms wrapped around me so fiercely that I almost let out a startled sob. He was hitting the release valve, giving me a place to let go. I wanted to let go so badly. His wide, steady hands dropped to the backs of my thighs, pulling them up as I launched myself into his grasp. My legs wrapped around him, his hands held me tightly, roaming and seeking but not letting go. He set me down gently on the bed and positioned himself between my legs in one seamless move. 

He kissed me with those oh-so-agile lips, my own parting to concede to his tongue, feeling it seek mine, painting long slow swipes. We slowed down gradually until we parted. He smiled down at me, stroking my face with the back of his hand, his hips quivering a little between my legs. His eyes spoke sleepy volumes, his blinking slow and heavy. 

“Do you want to sleep or do you want to try for it?” he asked, ‘it’ not needing to be defined. 

“Can we sleep? I’m still full. And your head must still be hurting.” 

“Yeah, it is. I’m gonna get some water then we can sleep for a little bit.”

 

When I woke up it was afternoon. The sun was slanted but not glaring. It was one of my favorite times of the day to sleep. Sleep was wasted at night. Who needed that when you could wake up to the world all buttery with sun, the rest of the day and night still ahead. These days of sleeping in the afternoon would be gone soon, except weekends. That would make them sweeter, I guess. 

I was so absorbed with the light I didn’t feel him watching me, at first. 

“Hey beautiful.” 

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. No one had ever said those words to me sincerely except my parents, and in that case not for a very long time. 

“Well I guess that’s a better reaction than a scowl and a punch!” 

“You’re still in danger of that!” I slugged his arm softly.  

“I can’t help it if you are beautiful. Them’s just the facts, ma’am.” 

“You are composed of 98% dairy, mister. Super. Cheese.”

“And proud!” he gave me a megawatt grin. Then his expression softened. “How are you feeling? I’m sorry about earlier. I really shouldn’t have said anything.” 

“It’s fine. I’m glad you were honest. I could tell something was bothering you.” 

“Are you okay, though? Are we okay?”

“I’m fine. We’re fine. We’re more than fine. We’re awesome.”

“Good,” he said. “Because there are a few things left I want to do to you.” 

“Oh really?”

“Yes, really,” he said. He was looking at me again, that way, that made me feel like he could see into every vein and crevice of my heart, like he could read my mind if he wanted to. “You’re different than most of the people I know.”

“I’m old. I know.” 

“No. It’s not just our ages. You’re different. I’ve known girls who could light up an entire stadium by just existing. But you know what comes with that? Blinding ambition. They know how to do everything so well. They fuck well. They bullshit well. They can sing, or dance, or act, or all of those. But not just because they love it. They do love it, but it’s not enough to be that for one person, to be that for me, they need the whole world to see it and love them for it. It doesn’t make them bad people, it just doesn’t work for me. Especially because to some of them I was just a stepping stone. A stop along the way. I could introduce them and open the doors that they couldn’t wait to get through and leave me behind.”

“I’m not like that.” 

“You’re not. I know you’re not. You’re bright, you could fucking light up the whole world if you wanted to but you don’t have to. You don’t need me to tell you you’re pretty all the time. You don’t even like it when I do. You don’t need me to pay attention just so you can have my attention. When we’re having sex I feel like you’re just with _me_ , who I am without everything else. You’re not trying to get through me, or use me. You’re different in a good way.”

“I’m small,” I smiled. 

“No, no! That’s not what I mean.”

“But I like feeling small. It’s good. Like I’m a cog in a machine; a useful part. I don’t like the pressure of leading but somehow I always end up in charge of things. I’ve made mistakes and failed and those things still haunt me and before I met you I wanted to give up. Not my life, but the quality of my life. I wanted to go work for the gray people just so I could get by. But you live. Even with your fame, we connected and you wanted to come back to my room with me for reasons I still don’t understand but I’m glad. I’m glad you did. I’m glad I met you.” 

He pulled me close. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me in the last ten minutes!” 

“It better be!” I punched him in the gut. 

He feigned injury. “Oof. Okay, alright. I’m glad I met you too.”

“You know for a famous action acting guy you’re not very good at taking a punch.” 

“Oh yes I am. You don’t even know. You just can’t punch.” 

I made a serious effort to pin him to the bed. “You’re letting me win,” I complained. 

He flipped me over effortlessly and held my arms down. “Yeah,” he grinned. “And now I’m going to kiss you. So you win anyway!”

“Shut the fuck up and fuck me before I really—” I never got to finish that sentence, and literally two seconds after I’d uttered the words I couldn’t have told you what I was really going to do. We were tearing at each other, unable to bare our skin quickly enough. We somehow managed to stay connected at the mouths while I ripped his shirt from the v-neck to the waist in one swipe, while he tore the buttons from my flimsy blouse and ripped the elastic in my bra. 

We spun quickly into a whirlwind of lips and flying clothing and flashing skin and—and I hate this word. But it’s the only word that I know that describes the need and the drive and the energy and heat and the lust and the urgency and the desire to merge and fuck and kiss and touch and scream and be. All bundled up in one word that conveniently tells you to be quiet and pay attention in the middle—passion. Time stopped. Our fingers floated over one another, our eyes doing the devouring.

“I want to try something sort of different,” he said, flipping us so that I was straddling his belly. 

I laughed. “As opposed to all the completely boring everyday things we’ve been doing so far?”

“Yeah. Anyway. I want to watch you touch yourself. Sit up and scoot down here on my chest so I can get a nice view, too.”

“You’re awfully bossy for someone on the bottom right now.”

“I can’t help it. I’m an oldest child.”

“Me too! No wonder we don’t get along at all.” 

“It’s amazing we haven’t killed each other yet.” 

“Yet,” I said, giggling as he pulled my hips toward his face. “Okay, okay, you’re going to topple me over and get a face full of boob if you don’t stop.”

“I’m okay with that,” he said through his lopsided smile. 

He maneuvered me into a satisfactory position on his chest and I tried not to get distracted by his chest hair and his clavicle and do what he had asked me to. 

“So what is the point of this exercise?” I asked.

“I’m sure you can guess. One, I love a sweet ass pussy in my face. Two, I want to see how you work it. Instructional purposes. I’m going to have a hard time not getting in there with you though. My tongue is itching just thinking about it.” 

“That sounds kind of unhealthy. An itchy tongue. You should get that checked out.”

“You know what I mean.” His voice changed from playful and rough and horny to silky and sweet and low all of a sudden, trying to calm me down. He was trying to be a fucking pussy whisperer. I wanted to laugh, but it was working. His hands gripped my hips gently and he was looking at me like a man on death row in front of his last meal. 

He bit his lip and I sighed audibly. “Touch yourself,” he said. 

I started slow, working my way in. “Talk to me,” I breathed. 

He was quiet for a second, thinking. 

The things he said. What he came up with surprised me, touched me, moved me, held me while I used my fingers to draw out the feelings to match them.

When I was breathing heavy and I’d reached that place where I was so so close, he pushed my hips down his abdomen and pulled me down to him and kissed me.

I held him at the verge for just a second, while we breathed and our eyes locked, already connected. And then I pushed down and he was in me. He was under me and I was on top of him and I was riding him so hard that the bed was shaking and his head was hitting the headboard (which was thankfully padded). I angled my hips so that the head of his cock was rubbing the forward wall inside of me, while his shaft leveraged against the lower edge. He was saying my name with every drop and swirl I executed and thrusting upward at me from underneath in time and hitting that spot inside and rubbing that spot outside with his thumb and— and I threw my head back and made a sound that I didn’t even recognize as my own as I came. 

It was like the world ended and was born all at once. Layers and layers of sensation contracted around a central point and then washed out through my body, radiated through me, blossomed and burned. I was nothing and everything and we were nothing and everything and it was the loveliest birthday present I’d ever had. And he didn’t even know it was my birthday. And it was only afternoon. My fingers dug into my thighs until it hurt, I was barely able to register the physical world, to keep from falling or flying. I felt his hands at my waist, solid and strong, holding me steady through my storm. 

When I could see and feel the world again I watched his face while he finished, and it was another gift. I didn’t know if any of his other girls had seen this expression, if he looked at them like he looked at me, his eyes flashing like the hearts of twin stars. In that moment I really was the only person in the world and I was the only person he wanted to be with or inside and I felt all of it. I felt every single thing. The only thing I didn’t feel was the pull. For just a moment there was no more need, no more gaping aching hole to suck away everything I loved and grind it down to quarks and god particles. The black hole was silent.  

When he was done he went limp under me, breath short, sweat pooling, heart beating. I held onto him until he began to shrink inside of me, still rocking with aftershocks.

“Did you—??”

“Yeah." 

“I thought—”

I shrugged. “You’re the only one who’s ever thought he could that actually did.” I laughed, amazed. 

He kissed my forehead. “You’re okay?”

“I’m so good you might have to have me checked for spontaneously occurring rainbows and unicorns. Why?”

“You’re crying." 

I touched my cheeks. I was. They were wet. The second I acknowledged the tears a whole ocean broke behind my chest. A rush of relief, gratitude and affection crashed through me and knocked out my lungs. I sucked in a breath and it came out as a sob.

“I-” sob “-can’t-” gasp, sob. I felt so stupid and out of control and it was so ridiculous that I started to laugh. And he was so confused. I reached out for him to steady myself and he let me hold onto him, but he was frozen with indecision about how to react to this new facet in my emotional spectrum.

“Are you laughing or crying? I can’t tell.”

“I’m everything-ing.” I said between cackle-sobs.

“I don’t know why-” I doubled over, holding my belly while a crest of laughter hit and then morphed into a sob.

“What exactly are you feeling?”

“Relief,” I laughed. “Euphoria,” I sobbed. “Embarrassed.” I covered my face and tried to breathe. 

He understood finally and reached for me, held me still until I was calm. “Don’t be embarrassed, baby.”

I sighed. “I like it when you call me that,” I said without thinking. “It makes my heart feel all warm and squishy.”

“Really?” he seemed genuinely pleased.

“I don’t know why I told you that, but yes. Really.”

He sat up against the headboard and pulled my back to his chest.

“Come here, baby.”

I leaned into him, knowing that the clock was ticking down on us. I tried not to think about it. If I’d been with anyone else I would have retreated to the bathroom to nurse my self-consciousness. But in one week I had shown him nearly every scary vulnerable part of myself and he was still here. So I stayed. 

I turned to him, pressing my skin against his, settling against the steady thrum of his heartbeat. “Thank you.” I whispered.

He tightened his arms around me.

He was ridiculously proud of himself for hours afterward. It was actually pretty endearing. He was at least surprised. And he did do it. 

“You’re a cocky bastard,” I told him. 

“And you’re a fully satisfied woman. Who has been satisfied. By me. And my cock.” 

He was giddy. So was I. I still punched him. 

 

At dinner I confessed that it was my birthday, and that I was no longer in his decade. I had now passed on into my thirties and I’d need a walker soon, could he please arrange that with the concierge and then leave me with some canasta cards and a companion named Earl who was easy to talk to and didn’t pass too much gas.

“No. Guess what we should do instead?” he asked.

“Chocolate cake?” 

“Oh, that’s a good idea too. But not what I was thinking.” 

“Don’t make me guess, I hate guessing,” I whined.  

 “I’m going to get you really drunk and convince you I’m awesome. 

“You’ve already done that.”

“I’m going to make you come so hard you forget your own name.”

“Done. I forgot yours too.”

“Dance party in a stuck elevator?”

“Done.”

“Motorcycle ride, picnic and starlight sex in a field?”

“Done, done and really done.”

“I guess we’ll have to do what I’m thinking of then." 

“Which is…?”

“How do you feel about karaoke?”

 


	23. chapters 23-32

under reconstruction


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